Ja Ian Chong

Ja Ian Chong is Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore and a non-resident scholar with Carnegie China. He previously worked with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, and was a Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program Fellow.

Ian’s work spans international relations, comparative politics, and political sociology, with a particular focus on security issues related to China and East Asia. He closely examines the interplay of social movements, politics, foreign policy, and coercive diplomacy in the region. His research has received support from the East-West Center, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Sasakawa Foundation, the Singapore Ministry of Education, the Social Science Research Council, and the Woodrow Wilson Circle of Fellows.

He is the author of External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation: China, Indonesia, and Thailand, 1893–1952 (Cambridge University Press 2012), which received the 2013–14 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. His work has also appeared in journals including The China Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, International Security, and Security Studies.

Areas of expertise: security, nationalism, contentious politics, coercive diplomacy, external intervention, and conflict.