Biography
Aurelio Insisa is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. He specialises in the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China, cross-Strait relations between Beijing and Taipei, and Taiwanese politics. His focus areas include hybrid threats, propaganda, strategic communications, and their connections with economic security and state-driven connectivity initiatives. His current research project at EUI focuses on the nexus between “techno-democracy” (as opposed to “techno-authoritarianism”) and strategic communications in the context of the increasing internationalization of cross-Strait tensions since the 2016 Taiwanese elections.
Dr. Insisa holds a BA and MA in Asian studies (Chinese curriculum) from Sapienza University of Rome and a PhD in Chinese history from the University of Hong Kong. During his PhD, he was also a visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai under the HKU-China 1000 Exchange Programme. After completing his doctoral studies, he taught at Lingnan University and, for six years, at the University of Hong Kong, where he offered courses in Chinese, Asian, and global history in the Department of History.
Dr. Insisa is the co-author of the monograph ‘Sino-Japanese Power Politics’ (Palgrave, 2017) and has published multiple articles for the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, as well as in academic journals such as International Affairs, The China Quarterly, The Pacific Review, and Asian Perspective.