How China Misperceives Itself
China faces slowing growth, an aging population, and financial strain. How Beijing perceives these challenges may matter just as much as the challenges themselves.
Francesca Ghiretti
Director, Economic Security and Resilience Initiative; Research Leader, RAND Europe China Initiative;
She/Her
Expertise
Francesca Ghiretti is director of the Economic Security and Resilience Initiative, former director of the China Initiative and a research leader at RAND Europe. Working primarily in Defence and Security, she leads work on economic security and on China. She is an expert in China’s economic policy and Europe-China relations and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Previously, she worked as a senior geoeconomics fellow at a London-based AI company and as an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). She spent a semester as a visiting fellow with the Asia Programme of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Ghiretti also worked as a research fellow in Asia at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), as a geopolitical analyst for a London-based hedge fund, and as an assistant to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former Secretary General of NATO. She is the author of "Chinese Investments and the Economic Security Turn in Europe" (Bristol University Press, 2025). Ghiretti’s writing and commentary have appeared in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Politico. She received her Ph.D. from the Centre for Grand Strategy, Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Her thesis explored how an economic means becomes a security issue, and received the Outstanding Thesis Award.
Education
Ph.D. in international relations, international political economy and security studies, King's College London; M.Sc. in international relations and diplomacy, Leiden University
Languages
Chinese (Mandarin); Italian; French
Concurrent Non-RAND Positions
Adjunct (Non-resident) Fellow, Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Authored by Francesca Ghiretti
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