Despite its relative stability since the end of World War II, the international system today is confronting multiple mounting challenges, such as climate change, the return of mercantilist policies, and a re-intensification of great power competition. Our research cluster examines China’s potential and actual role in this changing landscape, such as its continued engagement with the Global South, leadership in the green energy transition, growing diplomatic reach, and stewardship of the current global governance infrastructure.
Andrew Cheon is Associate Professor of International Relations at Duke Kunshan University (DKU). Dr. Cheon’s research focuses on governance, contestation, and conflict in the age of climate change and great power competition. He is currently researching global and regional leadership in the international system and microfoundations of threat perceptions among great powers. He is the author of Fueling State Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2023) and the co-author of Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry (Routledge, 2018). He has had papers published in reputable academic journals including Comparative Political Studies, Economics and Politics, and Journal of Conflict Resolution. His teaching interests at DKU include International Politics, Global Governance, and International Politics of East Asia. He is the recipient of the 2025 DKU Teaching Award. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. He has an A.B. in Political Science and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
David Landry is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Duke Kunshan University. His research focuses on the determinants and impacts of Chinese economic engagement abroad. More specifically, he researches the political and economic determinants of China's development finance and investment flows in the developing world, and how these in turn affect development. At Duke Kunshan, he teaches in the fields of international development and international political economy.
Paula Ganga is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Duke Kunshan University. Her research and teaching explore the economic consequences of illiberalism, the developmental impact of foreign aid, corruption, and the role of technology. She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the connection between economic nationalism and populism in Europe. Her interest in how the interaction between state policy and market investment influences technological innovation has led to research examining the development of quantum technologies worldwide. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in her hometown of Iași, Romania, as well as an M.Sc. in Global Governance and Diplomacy from Oxford University, where she was a Chevening Fellow. After completing her Ph.D. at Georgetown University, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University's Harriman Institute, and the Skalny Center for Polish and Central and Eastern European Studies at Rochester University, as well as a George F. Kennan short-term scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.
Yuan Wang is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Duke Kunshan University and an Assistant Professor at Peking University. Yuan Wang's research interests cover global China, African politics and comparative political economy of development. She is especially interested in African state effectiveness and China's economic and political engagement with Africa. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include China and the world, Sino-African relations, and African politics and development.
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