Dr Xue Gong is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator in China Programme of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She holds a PhD in International Political Economy at NTU. Her research focuses on China’s economic foreign policy. She also studies China’s state-business relations and overseas investment behaviour. Dr Gong has contributed to peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Contemporary China, World Development, Political Science Quarterly, European Journal of International Security, International Affairs, the Pacific Review, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Contemporary Southeast Asia and so on. She has two co-edited books on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

• China’s Economic Diplomacy
• Chinese Overseas Investments
• State-Firms Relations
• China-ASEAN Relations
• China’s CSR Activities

Monographs

• Regional Economic Integration in the Post-Pandemic Era

  31 August, 2022

RSIS Commentary Series

• CO17096 | China’s Belt and Road Forum: What Now?

  17 May, 2017

• CO16228 | Chinese Corporate Players in the South China Sea: Complicating the Disputes?

  14 September, 2016

IDSS Papers

• IP24076 | Navigating Economic Statecraft: Unveiling China’s Strategic Dance with Southeast Asia

  23 September, 2024

• IP24069 | Another Battlefield in the Great Power Technology Competition: China’s Geostrategic Approach in Biotechnology and Implications for Southeast Asia

  05 September, 2024

• IP24028 | Two Sessions: How China’s Ambitious Transformative Economic Plan Will Impact Southeast Asia

  20 March, 2024

• IP23074 | How to Tell a Good Story of the Belt and Road Initiative?

  25 October, 2023

• IP23071 | How to Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

  28 September, 2023

• IP22057 | Whither China's Belt and Road Initiative in the Post-20th Party Congress Era?

  15 October, 2022

• IP22050 | How Not to Run on Fumes in the BRI: Create New Initiatives!

  06 September, 2022

• IP21005 | How to Retaliate against a "Bully": China's Weaponisation of Law in the US-China Rivalry

  06 September, 2021

• IP21004 | What the RCEP Can Tell Us about China's Role in the Emerging Geoeconomic Order in Asia

  01 September, 2021

Journal Articles

• “Where India and China Meet: Competing Regional Statecraft in Southeast Asia” (with Daniel Balazs) in Political Science Quarterly, 2025. pp. 1-27.
• “China’s Interventions in ‘Gray Special Economic Zones’ in Southeast Asia’s Borderlands” (with Ho, Selina, and Carla P. Freeman) in Journal of Contemporary China, 2025. p1-17
• “Ponder the path of thy feet: How China’s security–development nexus works in the Mekong region” in European Journal of International Security, 2025, p1-19
• “Turning the Virtual into Reality: China’s Role in the Metaverse” in Asia Policy, Vol. 19, Issue 1, 2024
• “Taking ideas and words seriously: explaining the institutionalization of the Lancang-Mekong cooperation” (with Li Mingjiang) in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2023
• “Taking ideas and words seriously: explaining the institutionalization of the Lancang-Mekong cooperation” (with Li Mingjiang) in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2023
• “The BRI: A new development cooperation paradigm in the making? Unpacking China’s infrastructure cooperation along the Maritime Silk Road” (with Li Mingjiang, and Ana Cristina Alves) in World Development, Vol 169, 2023
• “Words Can Speak Louder Than Actions: Examining China’s Discourse Approach in Mekong Governance” in Asia Policy, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2022, pp. 21-27
• “Emerging Soft Turn in China’s Energy Security Cooperation with Southeast Asia” in China Review, Vol. 21 , No. 4, 2021, p. 109-140
• “China’s Energy Financing in Southeast Asia: Examining Its Public Goods Approach” in East Asian Policy, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2021, pp. 19-32
• “Emerging Soft Turn in China’s Energy Security Cooperation with Southeast Asia” (with Daniel Balazs) in China Review, Vol 21, No. 4, 2021. pp. 109-140
• “Logics of Appropriateness: Explaining Chinese Financial Institutions’ Weak Supervision of Overseas Financing” in World Development, Vol. 142, 2021
• “China’s Economic Statecraft: The Belt and Road in Southeast Asia and the Impact on the Indo-Pacific” in Security Challenges, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2020, pp. 39-46
• “Understanding the Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar: A Socio-Politico and Economic Approach” in China and the World, 3, 4, 2020
• “Non-Traditional Security Cooperation between China and South-East Asia: Implications for Indo-Pacific Geopolitics” in International Affairs, Vol. 96, No. 1, 2020, pp. 29–48
• “The Lion-Dragon dance in the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative: A critical view on Singapore-China economic relations and the implications” in Asian Education and Development Studies, 2019
• “The Belt & Road Initiative and China’s Influence in Southeast Asia” in The Pacific Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2019, pp. 635-665
• “The Role of Chinese Corporate Players in China’s South China Sea Policy” in Contemporary Southeast Asia, 40, 2, 2018, 301-26
• Gong Xue. Economic Statecraft : An Assessment of China’s Search for Influence in Southeast Asia, International Public Policy Studies国際公共政策研究 (Japan), Volume 22, Number 1, 2017
• Asymmetric Economic Interdependence and the South China Sea Disputes, Spring 2014, Vol XVI, No. 1, Harvard Asia Quarterly

Edited Books / Special Issues

• Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative (with Joseph Liow Chin Yong, and Hong Liu), Eds. : Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021
• Securing the Belt and Road Initiative: Risk Assessment, Private Security and Special Insurances along the New Wave of Chinese Outbound Investments (with Alessandro Arduino), Eds. UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Chapters in Edited Books

• “Good governance in a post Covid-19 World: Global health and economic recovery” (with Xirui Li ) in Liu Hong, Celia Lee, and Jeremy Goh, Good governance in a post Covid-19 World: Global health and economic recovery. Brussels: IIAS Public Governance Series, 2023, p.45-58
• “China and the World Health Organization: Not an Easy Road for Either” in Anoma van der Veere, Florian Schneider and Catherine Lo (Eds.), Public Health in Asia during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Global Health Governance, Migrant Labour, and International Health Crises. Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2022, pp. 83-96
• “Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar: Adapting to the Slippery Road” in Joseph Liow Chin Yong, Hong Liu and Xue Gong (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative. United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, pp. 190-201
• “Tying Hands for What?’ China’s New White Paper on International Development Financing” in Giuseppe Gabusi (Ed.), Drivers of Global Change, Responding to East Asian Economic and Institutional Innovation. Italy: Torino World Affairs Institute, 2021, pp. 23-28
• “Conclusion: BRI, COVID-19 and the Future, Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative” (with Joseph Liow Chin Yong, and hong liu) in Joseph Liow Chin Yong, Hong Liu and Xue Gong (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative. United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, pp. 439-448
• “Introduction to the Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative” (with Joseph Liow Chin Yong, and Hong Liu) in Joseph Liow Chin Yong, Hong Liu and Xue Gong (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative. United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, pp. xx-xxiii
• “Lancang–Mekong Cooperation: Minilateralism in Institutional Building and Its Implications” in Bhubhindar Singh and Sarah Teo (Eds.), Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific: The Quad, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, and ASEAN. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2020, pp. 57-73
• “China’s Belt and Road Initiative Financing in Southeast Asia” in Malcolm Cook and Daljit Singh (Eds.), Southeast Asian Affairs. Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2020, pp. 77-98
• “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: How It May Change the Regional Order in Southeast Asia?” in He Kai and Feng Huiyun (Eds.), China’s Challenges and International Order Transition. Michigan, United States: Michigan University Press, 2020, pp. 117-138
• “The Belt and Road Initiative: Progress and Prospect in Southeast Asia” in Chay Yue Wah, Thomas Menkhoff and Linda Low (Eds.), China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Understanding the Dynamics of a Global Transformation. Singapore: World Scientific, 2019, pp. 151-176
• Gong Xue. 2018. "China Power Investment in Myanmar" in Securing the Belt and Road Initiative: Risk Assessment, Private Security and Special Insurances along the New Wave of Chinese Outbound Investments Edited by Alessandro Arduino and Xue Gong, Palgrave Macmillan,
• Gong Xue. China’s Economic Inducement towards Vietnam: What lies ahead? In China’s Economic Statecraft : Co-optation, Cooperation, and Coercion. Edited by Mingjiang Li, World Scientific 2017

Working Papers

• Biopharmaceuticals Rising: China’s Strategic Pivot to Southeast Asia Amid Great Power Tech Competition, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, China, 23 January 2025
• The Mekong Region Is a Test of China’s Global Development and Security Model, The Mekong Region Is a Test of China’s Global Development and Security Model, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1 December 2023
• Chinese Mining Companies and Local Mobilization in Myanmar, Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, United States, 26 January 2022

Op-Eds

• “The overlooked triangle: China, India, and the EU” (with Daniel Balazs), China-India Brief #188, 14 September 2021
• “The Overlooked Triangle: China, India, and the EU” (with Daniel Balatz), China-India Brief #188, 28 August 2021
• “The Belt and Road and the Pandemic: Impact on Southeast Asia Amid the US-China Rivalry”, AsiaGlobal Online, 25 March 2021
• “Belt and Road in Southeast Asia: Inevitable Storms”, AsiaGlobal Online, 11 July 2019
• “Will China Undermine Its Own Influence in Southeast Asia Through the Belt and Road?”, The Diplomat, 13 April 2019
• “Why Some in South-east Asia Still have Reservations about China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, TODAY, 20 March 2018
• Gong Xue, "Welcome to Conflict Tourism: How Chinese State Firms are Using the South China Sea", South China Morning Post, 19 September 2016, available at http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2020096/welcome-conflict-tourism-how-chinese-state-firms-are-using
• Gong Xue. "'Land Kings': China's Frenzied Property Deals", The Diplomat, July 2016
• Time for Action: Chinese Companies and “One Belt One Road”, IPP Review, 10 June 2016
• Gong Xue “When the Party Ends-China’s leaps and stumbles after the Beijing Olympics,” No. 6, Spring 2015, Journal of Asian Politics and History

• IP 6002 Regional Integration and the World Economy
• IP6033 Globalization and Development