Chengzhi Yin

Chengzhi Yin, assistant professor of political science at Syracuse university, teaches classes in Chinese foreign policy and international relations research methods. Previously, Yin was a postdoctoral research scholar in Columbia University’s China and the World Program. Yin was also a lecturer at Wellesley College and a research fellow in Tufts University’s Rising Power Alliances Project.

Yin’s research interests include international relations theory, great power conflict, rising powers, Chinese foreign policy, Asian security and Cold War history. His dissertation “Accommodation or Coercion: China’s Choices of Alliance Balancing Strategies,” is the basis of one published peer-reviewed journal article and a working book manuscript. Yin’s graduate studies were supported by a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame’s International Security Center and a dissertation fellowship from Boston College’s Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences.

Yin earned a Ph.D. from Boston College in 2022. 

Chengzhi Yin was a CWP fellow for 2022-23. Previously he was a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at Boston College. His research interests include international security, grand strategy, and Chinese foreign policy. 

His dissertation title was: “Logic of Choice: China’s Alliance Balancing Strategies” Dissertation abstract: China uses alliance balancing strategies to divide adversarial alliances and bind its own. The dissertation explores the way China chooses its strategies, including coercion, accommodation, and a mixture of both. Using archives from China, the United States, and Russia, the dissertation conducts five case studies and identifies leverage and threat perception to determine China’s choice of these strategies.