Mercy A. Kuo is Senior Contributing Author at The Diplomat. She was formerly executive vice president at a U.S. business risk intelligence consultancy, where she advised Fortune 500 companies on geopolitical risk.

Dr. Kuo has held executive leadership positions as president and executive director of the Washington State China Relations Council in Seattle, managing director and research director at the Committee of 100, a U.S.-China relations leadership organization in New York City, and director of the Southeast Asia and Strategic Asia programs at a U.S. foreign policy think tank. She previously served as an all-source analyst specializing in Northeast and Southeast Asian political, security, and military issues at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Dr. Kuo provides subject-matter expertise on U.S.-China relations, Chinese foreign policy, China-EU-NATO dynamics, and the impact of geopolitical risk on business at international and national academic, business, investment, and government forums. She holds a Ph.D. in modern history from Oxford University and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Yun Sun is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations and China’s relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes.

From 2011 to early 2014, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, jointly appointed by the Foreign Policy Program and the Global Development Program, where she focused on Chinese national security decision-making processes and China-Africa relations. From 2008 to 2011, Yun was the China Analyst for the International Crisis Group based in Beijing, specializing on China’s foreign policy towards conflict countries and the developing world. Prior to ICG, she worked on U.S.-Asia relations in Washington, DC for five years. Yun earned her master’s degree in international policy and practice from George Washington University, as well as an MA in Asia Pacific studies and a BA in international relations from Foreign Affairs College in Beijing.

Wenchi Yu is a global affairs advisor and business operator specializing in cross-border and market access strategies between Asia and the United States. She is also an international affairs commentator for TVBS News – a Taipei-headquartered media outlet with mostly Chinese-language viewers globally. Her business experiences include high-growth global technology companies where she advises on public policy, social impact, and public relations, as well as Goldman Sachs where she headed strategic philanthropy and stakeholder engagement in Asia.

Before joining the private sector, she worked in the US Department of State and US Congress. She started her career in the non-profit sector. Her writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Council on Foreign Relations blogs, Caixin, and the Forbes. She is a Nonresident Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an Asia 21 Advisory Board member of Asia Society. She has an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in political science from National Taiwan University.