Zongyuan (Zoe) Liu

Zongyuan (Zoe) Liu (刘宗媛) completed her Ph.D at the Edwin Reischauer fellow at School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Her main line of research is in the intersection between International Political Economy and Comparative Politics with area expertise in East Asia. She specializes in the political economy of government-owned investment funds. In the context of China and the world, her research focuses on China’s state-owned investment funds with the intent to evaluate the domestic-international interactions that underpinned China’s practice of financial statecraft. Her current book project examines when, why, and how China leveraged its foreign exchange reserves to capitalize several sovereign wealth funds for the purpose of advancing a state-prioritized agenda in global financial markets. From a comparative perspective, she also examines why and how Japan leveraged its foreign exchange reserves and discreetly transformed Japan’s government-owned financial institutions. Beyond her research on government-owned investment funds, Zoe has done intensive research on Persian Gulf-East Asia relations with a special focus on energy, finance, and infrastructure.