Yingqiu Kuang joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as 2024-2025 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia beginning January 2025. She is a political scientist specializing in the comparative and international political economy of China and East Asia. Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology, law, and global governance. Her book project, “A Mosaic of Mundane Innovations: Emerging Powers, Multinational Firms, and Global 5G Technology Rules,” examines the emergence of latecomer economies like China and South Korea as key agents in the global technology governance regime. Using a mixed research method and an original, novel dataset, the project aims to explain why East Asian firms appear more effective in 5G rule-making on transnational platforms than traditional technology giants, and how the diverse behavior of these firms are reshaping global institutions.
At APARC, Yingqiu will expand and revise her book manuscript. She will also continue to pursue her wider scholarly agenda, which concerns the economic engagements between China, East Asia, and the world. She is particularly interested in how technological unpredictability is changing the landscape of economic governance in the region and the world.
Yingqiu completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. She also holds a master’s degree in political science from UBC. She developed her interest in political science and international relations in East Asia while an undergraduate student at Peking University and Waseda University in China and Japan. As a policy and technology specialist, she has also worked with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, the National Energy Board of Canada and others on trade, investment, and clean energy issues.
