China Governance Lab Graduate Fellow Conference 2026

The 2026 Graduate Fellow Conference of the China Governance Lab featured research presentations by six fellows, along with two special guest speakers: Joseph Torigian, author of The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Stanford University Press, 2025), and Eva Dou, author of House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company (Portfolio, 2025). The event was chaired by Lynette Ong, Director of the China Governance Lab.

 

 

 

Joseph Torigian is an academic and author who studies authoritarian regimes and grand strategy with a focus on China and Russia. He is Provost Associate Professor at American University's School of International Service and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion (2022) and The Party’s Interests Come First (2025).

 

Eva Dou is a Chinese-American technology journalist and writer based in Washington D.C. She has reported for more than a decade on high-tech innovation, industrial policy, advanced manufacturing and supply chains, primarily for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. As a foreign correspondent based in Beijing and Taipei, she covered political and economic developments across the region, and the rise of a new generation of high-tech champions. Her 2025 book House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company is a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize for foreign affairs and was shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year. After growing up in Tampa and Detroit, she studied journalism and economics at the University of Missouri.

 

Lynette Ong is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto, and Director of China Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy