It was not until the mid-1980s that the changing circumstances of China’s opening brought me to the University of Oxford. It is the prestigious M.Phil. programme in
International Relations that embraced me as its first graduate recruit from the People’s Republic of China in any social sciences and humanities subjects at Oxford. For me, that was the point of no return for my life-time interest in the studies of International Relations and of China.

A combination of the breathtaking transformation of China as well as East Asia and the radical reshaping of International Relations as an academic discipline in the last two decades makes my current research agenda both challenging and stimulating. My next ‘big’ research project, International Relations in Ancient China, cuts across the disciplinary boundaries of political philosophy, ancient history, IR theory and the history of ideas, and promises to make a modest contribution to a civilisational dialogue between East and West in their common endeavour to search for a viable global order in the 21st century.

I am currently serving as the Director of the New Zealand Asia Institute at the University of Auckland, a position that enhances my commitment to Asian knowledge creation and dissemination in the nation’s search for a future with Asia.

Dr Yongjin Zhang 

   You can view the executive summary of Dr  Yongjin Zhang's Outlook paper or the full report.

    Other Outlook papers.