CWP alum Sabine Mokry on the Pekinology Podcast discussing 'How Experts Shape Chinese Foreign Policy'

In this episode of Pekingology, CSIS Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Sabine Mokry, Postdoctoral Researcher with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and author of the new book Chinese Scholars and Think Tanks’ Construction of China's National Interest. Sabine unpacks the process through which outside expertise can shape the Party’s national security concepts, the relevance of Chinese think tanks and scholars in policymaking, and how China – nearly a thousand miles from the Arctic – became a “near-Arctic State.”

Podcast Episode by Henrietta Levin - Published January 22, 2026

Sabine Mokry is a researcher in the research and transfer project Arms Control and Emerging Technologies. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Leiden University (Netherlands). For the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program.  Before pursuing her PhD, she worked at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) as a research associate focusing on China’s foreign and security policy. She studied International Relations and China Studies at the University of Passau, Free University of Berlin and at Nanjing University (China). 

Photo Credit: https://www.csis.org/podcasts/pekingology/how-experts-shape-chinese-foreign-policy