Researcher
Lunting Wu
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Summary
Lunting Wu is a Senior Research Fellow in the Research Group for Eastern Europe and Asia at NUPI, as well as an Associate at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). His research interests revolve around foreign policy analysis, political economy, diplomacy, and global governance, and cover regions including China, Southeast Asia, European Union, and Latin America. He holds a PhD in International Relations (2023) from Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of the book "Belt and Road Initiative in South America: Explaining the varying responses" (Palgrave 2024), and his works have appeared or are forthcoming in peer-reviewed journals such as International Affairs, Foreign Policy Analysis, Global Studies Quarterly, Global Policy, and International Politics.
Expertise
Education
2023 PhD in International Relations, Freie Universität Berlin
2018 Master in International Relations, University of Lisbon
2016 BA in Foreign Language Studies, Macau University of Science and Technology
Work Experience
2024-2025 Guest researcher, Zeppelin University
2024 Lecturer, Berlin School of Economics and Law
2023-2024 Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS)
2019-2023 Doctoral Researcher, SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence, Freie Universität Berlin
2019 Assistant Researcher (H2020), University of Lisbon
2018 Research Intern, United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersStatus preservation vis-à-vis hegemonic misrecognition
What happens when the hegemon misrecognises the status of its allies or partners? This article argues that hegemonic recognition plays a critical role in stabilising allies’ social standing within the established international hierarchy. When such recognition is withdrawn—particularly in contravention of the ally’s sovereignty and shared basic norms of the status group—misrecognised states not only confront a potential legalistic erosion of their sovereignty but also experience status anxiety that unfolds relationally: uncertainty over how they are now positioned vis-à-vis the hegemon, their status peers, and other states beyond the status group. In response to this multidimensional threat, allies mobilise a range of status-preserving strategies aimed at reaffirming their rightful place and standing within the existing order. Building on works regarding status, this article identifies four core status-preserving strategies: status performance and signalling, normative reassertion, international insertion, and selective accommodation. Through qualitative analysis on two selected cases, it demonstrates how Canada and Denmark seek to preserve their sovereign status without capitulating to hegemonic coercion. In this way, this research contributes to existing status scholarship by shifting focus from status-seeking to status-preserving behaviours, and by exploring the implications of misrecognition from a norm-breaking hegemonic ally rather than a strategic adversary.
How Equitable and Inclusive? Comparing High-Speed Railway Projects in Indonesia and Thailand
While Southeast Asian governments sometimes wield bargaining power in securing infrastructure deals with external donors like China, many such projects still fail to deliver equitable and inclusive outcomes. This paper argues that autonomy alone, though necessary, is insufficient to ensure socially just infrastructure. We show that the enduring top-down Chinese developmental state model and the concomitant adherence to developmentalism by host states often override participatory and distributive concerns. Comparing Indonesia's Jakarta–Bandung high-speed railways (HSR) and Thailand's Bangkok–Nong Khai HSR, we find that the adherence to developmental state ideation of the Chinese investors on the one hand and developmentalist practices of the Indonesian and Thai project hosts on the other hand produced similarly adverse impacts on local communities, including evictions, environmental degradation, and limited public engagement. We call for a shift in focus from state autonomy alone to the ideational frameworks that underpin infrastructure outcomes, and urge that greater attention be paid to equity and inclusiveness in both scholarly and policy debates.
All on the Same Page? Comparing European Populist Radical Right Governments’ Foreign Policy towards China
Do European populist radical right (EPRR) governments converge in their engagement with China? If not, what explains their divergence? While prior research has explored populist foreign policy, little attention has been paid to their China strategies or the factors shaping them once EPRR parties gain power. This study compares the differing approaches of three EPRR governments—Brothers of Italy, Law and Justice, and Fidesz—and argues that the variation stems from two factors: the intensity of transnational business interests sustaining economic interdependence with China, and the degree of foreign policy executive centralization. By empirically analyzing these cases, the paper contributes to debates on populist foreign policy and their relations with Beijing. It demonstrates that even governments sharing similar thick ideologies may diverge in practice, as institutional and contextual constraints shape the extent to which populist leaders can act on their partisan interests.
Building influence: China's Belt and Road Initiative and the geopolitics of infrastructure
Over the past decade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has redrawn physical, economic, and political maps. From ports in the Indian Ocean to...
Chinese infrastructure power in a changing global landscape and its alternatives
This seminar draws on five years of research to examine China's Belt and Road Initiative and its alternatives, from Europe and Latin America to Southeast Asia and the MENA region.
Ghosting diplomacy: China's silent treatment amid great power competition
If diplomacy is about communication, how does ghosting communicate? China has increasingly used ghosting or silent treatment when practising diplomacy. It has purposefully cut off high-level communication channels with its ‘significant others’ in recent years. When and why does China ghost other states, including its most important partners? How does strategic ghosting fit with the more combative turn in China's ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ under Xi Jinping? Current scholarship on emotional diplomacy largely focuses on the display of emotions but rarely deals with diplomacy in which the expressions of emotions are covert. This article argues that ghosting diplomacy usually follows a perceived severe violation of core interests; rather than directly displaying emotions like anger, silent treatment is a covert aggression that is punitive by nature. Building on works of emotional diplomacy, security studies and social psychology, this article contributes to the conceptualization and theorization of interstate silent treatment in International Relations and unravels the motives of states to resort to this strategy. Through discourse analysis in a single case-study on China's silent treatment of the United States in the aftermath of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022 and the 2023 incident involving suspected surveillance balloons, the research provides a thick description and explanation of how China's ghosting diplomacy unfolded amid heightened geopolitical tensions between the two great powers. As such, it is relevant for both scholars and policy-makers working in foreign policy, in that it sheds light on this covert aggressive form of diplomacy, and on how states can best respond to it.
“BRIexit”: Unravelling Withdrawals from the Belt and Road Initiative
Twelve years into the launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), over 140 countries have joined, but a few have left. These withdrawals, or BRIexit, though limited in number, raise crucial questions about the prospect of Beijing’s flagship initiative and the shifting geopolitical landscape in which it operates. What explains the withdrawals? More importantly, has there been any impact on the legitimacy of the BRI? Whilst some BRIexits stem from economic calculations, others reflect changing state preferences or mounting external pressures—trends that could reshape the BRI’s future, especially under a more aggressive second Trump administration.