GIULIANA DEL PAPA is the Head of the Policy Planning Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. She is also the President of the Italian Diplomat Women Association (Associazione Donne Italiane Diplomatiche e Dirigenti). Before her current role, she was Head of the Unit for Humanitarian Emergencies; in 2020 she was appointed Diplomatic Advisor of the Italian Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies.  From 2016 to 2020, she held position of First Counsellor at the Permanent Representation to the European Union in Bruxelles. During her diplomatic career she was posted to the Italian Embassies in Ethiopia, Spain and Peru. She graduated in Political Science at the University of Milan and entered the diplomatic career in 1999.

KERRY BROWN is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. He is an Associate of the Asia Pacific Programme at Chatham House, London, an adjunct of the Australia New Zealand School of Government in Melbourne, and the co-editor of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, run from the German Institute for Global Affairs in Hamburg. He is President-Elect of the Kent Archaeological Society and an Affiliate of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University. From 2012 to 2015 he was Professor of Chinese Politics and Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Prior to this he worked at Chatham House from 2006 to 2012, as Senior Fellow and then Head of the Asia Programme. From 1998 to 2005 he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing, and then as Head of the Indonesia, Philippine and East Timor Section. He lived in the Inner Mongolia region of China from 1994 to 1996. Professor Brown directed the Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN) giving policy advice to the European External Action Service between 2011 and 2014. He is the author of almost 20 books on modern Chinese politics, and has written for every major international news outlet, and been interviewed by every major news channel on issues relating to contemporary China.

WANG HUIYAO is the Founder and President of Center for China and Globalization (CCG), the leading Chinese non-government think tank that ranked among the top 80 think tanks in the world. Dr Wang was appointed by the Chinese Premier as a Counselor of China State Council, China’s cabinet in 2015. In addition, he is the Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation Association of the Ministry of Commerce; the Dean of Institute of Development Studies of China Southwestern University of Finance and Economics; Vice Chairman of China Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), and also Honorary Chairman of WRSA Chamber of Commerce. Dr Wang pursued PhD studies in international business and global management at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Manchester. He was a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a Visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution as well as a Senior Fellow at Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He has published over 40 books and 100 articles and papers on Chinese global talents, returnees, entrepreneurship and China going global.

SUSAN A. THORNTON is a Senior Fellow and Visiting Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center. Thornton is a retired senior U.S. diplomat with almost three decades of experience with the U.S. State Department in Eurasia and East Asia. She is also the director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Until July 2018, Thornton was Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State and led East Asia policymaking amid crises with North Korea, escalating trade tensions with China, and a fast-changing international environment. In previous State Department roles, she worked on U.S. policy toward China, Korea and the former Soviet Union and served in leadership positions at U.S. embassies in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus and China. Thornton received her M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and her B.A. from Bowdoin College in Economics and Russian. She serves on several nonprofit boards and speaks Mandarin and Russian.

GIULIA SCIORATI is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Chinese Studies at the University of Trento, working on a project investigating China’s relations with Central Asia. She also serves as Associate Research Fellow at ISPI Asia Centre, for the China Programme supported by Pirelli. She earned a PhD in International Studies from the School of International Studies of the University of Trento in 2020. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Nottingham and the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels. Giulia received an MA with honours in African and Asian Studies from the University of Pavia and a combined BA in International Relations/Foreign Languages from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. She was a visiting student at Beijing Language and Culture University during both degrees. Giulia is a member of the Italian Association of Chinese Studies (AISC), the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS) and the American Association for Asian Studies (AAS).

ALICIA GARCÍA HERRERO is a Senior Fellow at European think-tank BRUEGEL. She is also the Chief Economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, and a non-resident Senior Follow at the East Asian Institute (EAI) of the National University Singapore (NUS). Alicia is also Adjunct Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Finally, she is a Member of the Council of Advisors on Economic Affairs to the Spanish Government and an advisor to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s research arm (HKIMR) among other advisory and academic positions. In previous years, she held the following positions: Chief Economist for Emerging Markets at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Member of the Asian Research Program at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Head of the International Economy Division of the Bank of Spain, Member of the Counsel to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, Head of Emerging Economies at the Research Department at Banco Santander, and Economist at the International Monetary Fund. She has maintained a part-time academic life throughout her career as Visiting Professor at John Hopkins University (SAIS program), at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, Carlos III University in Madrid among others.

JOSHUA MELTZER is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on international economic relations and the intersection of technology and trade policy. Along with Cameron Kerry, he co-leads the Forum on Cooperation in Artificial Intelligence (FCAI). He also leads the USMCA initiative, which focuses on how the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) can strengthen international cooperation in North America. Meltzer has testified before the U.S. Congress, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the European Parliament. He was an expert witness in the Schrems II litigation in Europe on data flows and privacy and a consultant to the World Bank on trade and privacy matters. He is a member of the Australian government’s National Data Advisory Council as well as the Australian government’s AI Action Plans Committee. Meltzer teaches digital trade law at Melbourne University Law School and has taught digital trade law as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto Law School and ecommerce and digital trade at the diplomatic academy of the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Before joining Brookings, he was a diplomat at the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C.

XU MINGQI is professor of International Economics and Director of the European Studies Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, where he served as Deputy Director of the Institute of World Economy in 2005-2013 and Editor-in-chief of Social Sciences and Academic Quarterly in 1998-2001. He is currently President of the Shanghai Institute for European Studies. His main research areas are international economics, international finance, international political economy, European economy, monetary economics and monetary policy, and China’s economic system reforms. His other academic positions are: Vice Chairman of China’s society of European Economy Studies, Executive Council Member of the Chinese Association for European Studies, Secretary General of the Shanghai Association of World Economic Studies and Deputy Secretary General of China’s Society for World Economics. Professor Mingqi Xu also works as Chief Economist of the Shanghai Far East Credit Rating Corporation and Executive Director of the Municipal Research Center for International Finance. He is also guest professor at New York University (Shanghai), Fudan University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, as well as Academic Advisor to the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. He has published ten books and more than 150 papers in both Chinese and English.

FILIPPO FASULO is Co-Head of the Centre on Geoeconomics, ISPI, Italy. Before joining ISPI Filippo Fasulo served as the Director of the Italy-China Foundation’s Centre on Business Research (CeSIF). In 2014, he earned a Ph.D. in Politics and Istitutions from the Catholic University of Milan with a dissertation on the concept of power in China’s politics that was awarded the Cesare Bonacossa Prize by the University of Pavia. In 2012, he received a MSc in China in Comparative Perspectives at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Since 2011, he has been lecturing on China-related topics at the Catholic University of Milan. He is also Academic Secretary for the course in Far Eastern Studies at the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan. From 2014 to 2016, he has been a board member of the Institute for Public Administration Science (ISAP – Istituto per la scienza dell’amministrazione pubblica). His research focus is on Asia with particular interest in China at both the domestic and international levels.