Dr Hui-Chun Liu

Previously, I worked for Taiwan’s Parliament as an MP’s legal assistant and for a media company headquartered in Hong Kong as a public relations manager.

As a result of my expertise in politics and journalism, I have attempted to improve understanding of the global South, particularly in China, through my research project. I have conducted my PhD and post-doctoral research projects in human geography in order to theorise the geopolitics of political economy, particularly in China’s context at a global scale. Now, I am honoured to be hired as a research associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies (CTS) as SOAS, University of London.  

My research critically rethinks the entangled relationship between economic globalisation, geopolitics and identity politics from a bottom-up and multi-scalar perspective. My research intends to understand China’s cross-Strait economic policy as a state project that draws Taiwanese businesspeople in to develop a closer identification with China. Through this project, I have contributed to a better understanding of China's distinctive policymaking style - policy experimentation and how it is manifested in its local development project that focuses exclusively on Taiwanese investments.  

I have studied different disciplines in social sciences, including legal studies, sociology and human geography. This has helped me develop an original and multidisciplinary approach to my teaching and research in human geography. In addition, I have given presentations at international conferences and scholarly workshops, such as to the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting.

Following graduation, I was offered a position as a post-doctoral research fellow in Taiwan. Throughout my working, teaching and research journeys, I have had a passion for taking on new challenges, learning new things and working in a diverse environment with people regardless of their background, race, ethnicity and class. 

CONFERENCE PAPERS

• 2019, “Making Money and Everyday Geopolitics: Cross-Border Talent Fostering in Urban China”, presented in The Young Scholar Workshop 2019, the European Research Centre on Contemporary Taiwan funded by Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF-ERCCT), Tuebingen, Germany
• 2018, “From War Frontier to Maritime Silk Road: Adaptive Policy-making in Pingtan Pilot Zone" paper presented in Association of American Geographers 2019 Annual Meeting, New Orleans, US
• 2017, “Special Economic Zone, Everyday Geopolitics and Local Development of Pingtan Pilot Zone in China”, presented in The 3rd Workshop of Geopolitical Economy of East Asian Developmentalism (EARCAG-GPE), Taipei, Taiwan
• 2017, “The Land of Reconciliation—Policy Experimentation and Everyday Geopolitics in the Construction of Pingtan Pilot Zone”, presented in International Conference on China Urban Development, London, UK

• Urban Governance;
• Political Geography;
• Urban Geography;
• Critical Geopolitics