Founder and Lead Researcher

Frans-Paul van der Putten is a historian and geopolitical analyst. He has non-employee affiliations with the Clingendael Institute (as a Senior Research Associate) and LeidenAsiaCentre (as a Senior Fellow). He studied history at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and later obtained his PhD at the same university with a dissertation on the strategies of Dutch and Anglo-Dutch companies to address political and geopolitical risks in China in the first half of the twentieth century. He previously worked as a researcher and consultant on corporate social responsibility at Nyenrode Business University and is a former Editor-in-Chief of Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions. He is also a former head of the Clingendael China Center, which he co-founded with Monika Sie Dhian Ho in 2019.

Research Assistants

ChinaGeopolitics works with students and recently graduated students who, as interns, act as temporary research assistants. The current Research Assistants are Shiqing Xiao and Joep den Teuling.

Former Research Assistants since 2022 are Raphael Vellenga, Christine Lu, Anouschka Modak, and Angelina Molchanova.