Cheng-Chwee Kuik (CC Kuik) is an Associate Professor and Head of the Centre for Asian Studies at the National University of Malaysia (UKM)’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), and concurrently a Nonresident Fellow at Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute (FPI). He is co-founder of the East Asian International Relations (EAIR) Caucus, a research platform for exchange, engagement, and empowerment among foreign affairs professionals in Malaysia. Previously he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” Program (CWP) and a visiting research fellow at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations.

Dr. Kuik’s research concentrates on weaker states’ foreign policy behavior, regional multilateralism, East Asian security, China-ASEAN relations, and Malaysia’s external policy. His publications have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Contemporary China, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Asian Security, China: An International Journal, Asian Politics and Policy, East Asian Policy, Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi, as well as edited books. He is co-author (with David M. Lampton and Selina Ho) of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, October 2020), and co-editor (with Alice Ba and Sueo Sudo) of Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (Routledge 2016). Dr. Kuik’s essay, “The Essence of Hedging” was awarded the biennial 2009 Michael Leifer Memorial Prize by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies for the best article published in any of the three ISEAS journals.

Cheng-Chwee is a regular invited speaker to international conferences and closed-door policy roundtables. His current projects include: hedging in international relations, geopolitics of infrastructure connectivity cooperation in Asia, and domestic sources of Southeast Asian states’ BRI engagement. Kuik serves on the editorial boards/committee of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Politics and Policy, Asian Perspective, and Routledge’s “IR Theory and Practice in Asia” Book Series. He holds an M.Litt. from the University of St. Andrews, and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Cheng-Chwee can be contacted at cckuik@gmail.com.

David M. Lampton (1946-), born and raised in California, had his interest in China kindled by a high school teacher, Ms. Turner. A fire fighter as he put himself through Stanford University as an undergraduate, he was a medic in the US Army Reserve before receiving his Ph.D. from Stanford University where he wrote his first book: The Politics of Medicine in China. He started his teaching career at Ohio State University (1974-1987), spent the decade following that in New York City at The National Committee on US-China Relations as its president, and then became Director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins--SAIS where he spent the next twenty-one years (1997-2018). His books and articles have focused on Chinese domestic politics, Chinese foreign policy, and U.S.-China Relations, work that, along with his service to non-governmental organizations, won him the inaugural "Scalapino Prize" (2010) given by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Serving as Chairman of The Asia Foundation (2014-2019), he spent the period 2018-2020 at Stanford University as Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center before returning to Johns Hopkins--SAIS as Senior Fellow at its Foreign Policy Institute.

Born and raised in Singapore, Selina Ho has an abiding interest in China, the largest and most powerful country in Asia, and water, an issue that affects the survival of land-scarce Singapore. In her research and writings, she combines both interests by focusing on Chinese politics and foreign policy, specifically analyzing Chinese power through the lens of infrastructure politics and water disputes. Most of her work examines China's relations with its neighbors, particularly China-India and China-Southeast Asia relations. Selina is the author of Thirsty Cities: Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision in China and India, co-author of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia, and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations. She has also published widely in edited books and peer-reviewed journals on China's transboundary water disputes with its neighbors in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. Her work can be found in top-ranking journals including International Affairs, Chinese Journal of International Politics, and Journal of Contemporary China.

Selina was a former Singapore civil servant. She left the Singapore civil service to pursue a doctorate and is currently Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. In 2017/2018, she was a Global Futures Council Fellow with the World Economic Forum. Selina received her doctorate from the The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and her B.A. (Honors) from the National University of Singapore.