Aurelio Insisa

Aurelio Insisa is Senior Research Fellow for Asia within the "Global actors" programme at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Aurelio holds a PhD in Chinese history from the University of Hong Kong, where he lectured for six years. He was the 2023-24 Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute.
His research portfolio covers the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China, with a focus on China’s relations with the European Union and its member states, and Indo-Pacific security, as well as cross-Strait relations between Beijing and Taipei. His main fields of expertise are Chinese propaganda, strategic communications, and hybrid threats/grey zone operations, as well as connectivity and economic statecraft.
Aurelio is the co-author of the volume Sino-Japanese Power Politics (Palgrave, 2017) and has published numerous studies for the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, as well as for academic journals such as International Affairs, China Quarterly, The Pacific Review and Asia Maior.
Aurelio is also a work-package leader within the Horizon Europe project De-Conspirator: Detecting and Countering Information Suppression from a Transnational Perspective [3] and IAI’s representative within the European Think-Tank Network on China [4].

Selected publications:
• (with Michael J. West) “Reunifying Taiwan with China through Cross-Strait Lawfare [5]”, in The China Quarterly, Vol. 257 (March 2024), p. 186-201
• “Hybrid After All: The ‘Grey Zone’, the ‘Hybrid Warfare’ Debate, and the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy [6]”, in Defence Strategic Communications, Vol. 12 (Spring 2023), p. 165-186
• “Taiwan 2022: Cross-Strait Security Spirals Further Down [7]”, in Asia Maior, Vol. XXXIII (2022), p. 131-155
• (with Giulio Pugliese) “The Free and Open Indo-Pacific versus the Belt and Road: Spheres of Influence and Sino-Japanese Relations [8]”, in The Pacific Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2022), p. 557-585
• (with Giulio Pugliese and Francesca Ghiretti) “Italy’s Embrace of the Belt and Road Initiative: Populist Foreign Policy and Political Marketing [9]”, in International Affairs, Vol. 98, No. 3 (May 2022), p. 1033-1051
• “Taiwan 2021: Heightened Geo-Economic Relevance amid Rising Cross-Strait Tensions [10]”, in Asia Maior, Vol. XXXII (2021), p. 125-151
• “China’s Discourse on Strategic Communications: Insights into PRC External Propaganda [11]”, in Defence Strategic Communications, Vol. 10 (Spring-Autumn 2021), p. 111-152
• “No Consensus across the Strait: Chinese and Taiwanese Strategic Communications in a Contested Regional Order [12]”, in Asian Perspective, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 2021), p. 503-531