Ja-Ian Chong

Dr Ja-Ian Chong is associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore and a non-resident scholar with Carnegie China. Meanwhile, he acts as co-editor of AcademiaSG – a collective of academics promoting the study of Singapore.

His work examines the consequences of major powers competition, focussing on Northeast and Southeast Asia, US-China relations, PRC foreign policy and maritime security issues. Within this framework, Dr Chong’s research specialises in security cooperation, external intervention in domestic politics, and contentious politics. Therein, his work tracks the interplay of social movements in relation to political liberalisation and/or authoritarian resurgence. A close observer of politics in Taiwan and Singapore, Dr Ja-Ian Chong is presently looking into the aggregate effects of middle and smaller power responses to major power competition, with a subsequent interest in the political and social consequences of disinformation and influence campaigns.

Over time, Dr Chong has provided briefings to government agencies, multi-national corporations, and non-governmental organisations within Singapore and beyond, including Congressional committees in US. Contributing regularly to media reporting, he has been interviewed in English and Mandarin for a range of print, online, radio, and television. These include the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Al Jazeera, the BBC, Bloomberg News, Central News Agency, Caixin, Channel News Asia, CNBC, Deutsche Welle, the Financial Times, the Japan Times, Mediacorp, Ming Pao, National Public Radio, the New York Times, Radio France International, Sansad Television, the South China Morning Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Dr Ja-Ian Chong previously worked at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He has also spent time with the East-West Center in Washington, DC, the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, and the East Asia Institute in Singapore. Dr Chong was a Harvard-Yenching Institute visiting scholar, a Taiwan fellow, and a Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program fellow.

He is the author of “External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation – China, Indonesia, Thailand 1893-1952“, which received the 2013 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.