Speakers

Veronika Blablová is a Research Fellow at the Prague Office of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia. Veronika's research looks at Chinese information operations in Central Europe and beyond, China's influence in academia, and China's strategies in the field of technology, particularly artificial intelligence. She graduated in Security and Strategic Studies from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. She is also an Analyst at EpochAI, a research institute investigating the trajectories and trends of artificial intelligence, and Junior Associate Fellow at NATO Defense College.

Seong Hyeon Choi is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and a China reporter for the South China Morning Post (SCMP), covering Chinese military affairs and the relations between China and the Korean peninsula. He graduated with a master of international and public affairs with distinction from the University of Hong Kong and has working experience from US foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Pierre has over 10 years experience at the intersection of media and EU law and policy, working for various organisations (formerly in a Brussels-based trade association and the French media regulatory authority - Arcom)

His current position is Head of Advocacy at the Reporters Without Borders (RSF), where hes is responsible for developing and implementing RSF's agenda to protect and support free journalism and the right to information globally. 

Alexander Duleba is a Senior Fellow at the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA). From 2000 to 2019, he served as the director of RC SFPA. He earned his PhD in political science from the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1998. In 2009, he obtained the Assistant Professor (Doc.) degree from Comenius University in Bratislava, and in 2019, he was awarded the Professor (Prof.) degree from Masaryk University in Brno. Between 1993 and 1995, he worked as an analyst at the Slovak Institute for International Studies at the Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 1995, he has been working for RC SFPA as the head of the Eastern Europe Research Program. Additionally, in 2010, he began lecturing at the Institute of Political Science of Prešov University.

Dr. Thomas Eder is a Researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip). He works on China's foreign and security policy, with a focus on China's relations with other major powers and its global governance ideas. He previously worked at MERICS, the University of Vienna, and the Austrian Foreign Ministry.

Alfred Gerstl is president of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS). Furthermore, he is head of the EU-funded project “The EU in the volatile Indo-Pacific Region” (EUVIP) and Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacky University in Olomouc (Czech Republic). He is an International Relations specialist with a focus on the Indo-Pacific, notably Southeast Asia including ASEAN, and interested in security cooperation, hedging strategies, the role of the EU and Central Eastern Europe in the region and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Alfred taught at various universities in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Germany, and Russia. 

Dr Francesca Ghiretti is research leader on China and on economic security at RAND Europe. She is an expert in China’s foreign policy, and Europe-China relations and an adjunct fellow (Non-Resident) at the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Previously, she worked as senior geoeconomics fellow at a London-based AI company and as analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). She is the author of "Chinese Investments and the Economic Security Turn in Europe. Where economy and security meet" (Bristol University Press, January 2025). 

Dr. Sense Hofstede is a postdoctoral researcher for ReConnect China at Ghent University. He is an expert in the influence of the Chinese party-state on Beijing’s foreign policy, cross-Strait politics, and the international relations of the Indo-Pacific. He previously worked as a Lecturer at Leiden University and Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute, after his PhD in Comparative Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

David Hutt is a journalist and columnist who focuses on Southeast Asian politics, Europe-Asia relations, and New Cold War geopolitics. He is “Southeast Asia Columnist” for the Diplomat and associate editor at Contemporary Southeast Asia. He writes for several other international newspapers.

Jakub Janda specializes in European policy to Russia and China, also specifically to the response of democratic states to hostile influence operations. Outside of his civilian job, he serves as an officer of Active Reserves of the Czech Armed Forces within the Czech Cyber and Information Warfare Command. Between 2016 – 2017, he was tasked by Czech security and intelligence institutions to consult on “the Influence of Foreign Powers” chapter within the Audit of National Security conducted by the Czech government, where he was involved in the Czech policy shift on this issue. Since 2015, he has been asked to provide briefings and trainings in more than 20 countries. He has delivered expert briefings and testimonies to Members of the U.S. Congress, NATO Political Committee or to the European Parliament Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE). In January 2022, he established EVC Taiwan Office, making EVC the first European think-tank to set up permanent presence in Taiwan. Between 2024 and 2025, he served as visiting fellow at Taiwanese Defense Ministry think-tank, the Institute of National Defence and Security Research (INDSR), conducting simulations of Chinese operations against Taiwan and its implications for European security.

Marcin Jerzewski is the Head of the Taiwan Office of the European Values Center for Security Policy and Marcin Król Fellow at Visegrad Insight. Jerzewski specializes in domestic politics and foreign relations of Taiwan, relations between Europe and the Indo-Pacific, comparative democratization, and resilience studies. He is also a frequent commentator on the politics and international relations of Taiwan, with his analyses cited in outlets including The Economist, The New York Times, and Yomiuri Shimbun, among many others. A sinologist and political scientist, Jerzewski is an alumnus of the National Chengchi University, the University of Richmond, and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Beáta Jurík is a Slovak politician and lawyer,  currently serving as a MP for the Progressive Slovakia Party. She holds the position of Vice-Chair of the European Affairs Committee. Graduated in EU Law and Human Rights at Universities of Bordeaux and Strasbourg, she started her carreer as an Assistant Professor before engaging in politics. She also served as a Policy Advisor in the EP for the liberal group Renew Europe in both CONT and FEMM Committees, focusing on Rule of law, corruption, EU funding and equality. Her political work is now centered on EU politics, human rights and youth policies. She is also known for her strong support of Ukraine and its EU integration. Progressive and liberal, her main objective is to make Slovakia (again) a pro-EU, modern and inclusive country, where everybody feels safe and accepted and can live a decent life. 

Kristina Kironska is a socially engaged interdisciplinary academic with experience in Taiwan Affairs, CEE-China/Taiwan Relations, Myanmar Studies, human rights, election observation, and advocacy. She spent many years living in Taiwan, including lecturing at the University of Taipei. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the Palacky University Olomouc (Czechia), where she co-coordinates an EU-funded project "The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region". She is also the Advocacy Director at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies and serves as the Chair of the Board of Amnesty International Slovakia and as a Board Member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies.

Barbara Kratiuk is an asistant professor at Vistula University in Warsaw, where she teaches Asian Studies. She was educated at the University of Warsaw, Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg and London School of Economics. Barbara has worked for Polish embassies in Berlin and Singapore as well as various media outlets before embarking on her academic career. She has been a visiting scholar at various universities in India, Japan and Korea, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kyungpook National University, International Christian University. Her fields of research are international relations in Southeast Asia, power politics and different aspects of power, great and middle power as well US relation with Asia and Indo-Pacific. Previously she has done work on post-colonial discourse in East Asia and the colonal race in 19th century. She has written a monograph on US-Vietnamese relations and edited the Handbook of Indo-Pacific Studies.

Chyungly Lee is Professor of International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Her researches cover topics on Indo-Pacific security and regional multilateralism. She has been an active participant in regional and bilateral track II processes, including the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP), and an invited visiting scholar to Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, ASEAN Studies Initiative at American University, Stimson Center in Washington D.C., and U.S. Sandia National Lab. Dr. Lee was Vice President of Institute of National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) in 2018 and received her Ph.D. from University of Maryland, College Park.

Sylvia Malinbaum is Head of India and South Asia Research at Ifri's Center for Asian Studies. Before joining Ifri in 2024, she served as Deputy Financial Advisor at the Regional Economic Service for South Asia within the French embassy in India, working under the Directorate General of the Treasury at the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry. Based at the French consulate in Mumbai, she was responsible for fostering economic cooperation between France and Western India and supporting French companies interested in the Indian market.Sylvia worked for seven years at the Directorate General of the Treasury, exclusively in international postings in Kenya, Egypt, and then India. She holds a Master’s degree in Management from ESCP Business School, following two years of preparatory classes at Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

Ms. Maronkova is an established NATO expert with over 18 years of experience with foreign and security policy topics. She currently serves as the Lead on engagement with Global Partners at Public Diplomacy Division. Between 2021-2022 she was assigned as a Communications Advisor on NATO’s Strategic Concept at the Policy Planning Unit of the Office of Secretary General. She held various functions, including the Acting Director of NATO Information Office in Moscow, Russia (2020-2021) and served as the Director of the NATO Information and Documentation Centre in Ukraine from March, 2017 till September 2020. Previously, she worked in NATO’s Press and Media office and managed public diplomacy campaigns in the Western Balkans. In this capacity, she advised candidate countries on their national public awareness campaigns on NATO membership. Maronkova was also a Non-resident research fellow with the Centre on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California (2015-2017) and is a frequent contributor to academic writings on public diplomacy and strategic communications.

Andrej Matišák has been working as a foreign policy journalist for more than 20 years, and since 2006, he has been with the Pravda newspaper in Slovakia. He covers European politics, international relations, and global security. Between 2015 and 2016, he was the editor of the Defence Matters project, an online discussion platform focused on defense topics, which was a joint initiative between four media outlets from four EU countries with the support of NATO. He is also the creator of The Global Agora podcast.

Kara Němečková is a Research Fellow at the Prague Office of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia. Kara's research looks at EU-China relations, China's influence in Europe and Africa, and foreign interference. She holds a Master's degree in International Security from the School of International Affairs at Sciences Po. As part of her studies, she spent one year at Fudan University in Shanghai. She also interned in the Asia Program of Institut Montaigne in Paris. 

Nyein Chan May is a student activist and co-founder and CEO of German Solidarity Myanmar. She came to Germany to study political science before the coup in February 2021. From 2012 to 2015, she co-founded the student union at the Foreign Language University in Yangon. She defines herself as an intersectional feminist. She is also a podcaster and part of Burma Podcast Network. 

Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. Dr. Panda is also a Professor at the Department of Regional and Global Studies at the University of Warsaw; and a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands. As a senior expert on China, East Asia, and Indo-Pacific affairs, Prof. Panda has testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the US Congress on ‘China and South Asia’. He is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia.

Konrad deals with the topics of international economic relations, supply chains and transport policy. He’s an author of numerous analyses and several longer studies on the development of the economies of Central Europe and Germany and Eurasian transport corridors. In 2020-2022, head of the Central European Team at the OSW, and previously for a decade an analyst on the German economy. He’s been a coordinator and member of international research teams. Author of expert opinions, among others for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Development of the Republic of Poland. 

Dr. Swati Prabhu is Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India. Her research explores the interlinkages between development partnerships and sustainable development. Swati's broader research interests include India-EU relations, EU development policy, and environment. She completed her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India on the European Union's development policy and environment focusing on the challenges of the SDGs. Swati has authored several policy briefs on furthering India-EU relations for the EU-India Think Tanks Twinning Initiative (EUITTI). She also regularly writes for The Telegraph.

Alice Rezková is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Czech-Taiwanese Business Chamber, and an analyst specializing in economic diplomacy. Her research projects focus on economic diplomacy strategies, supply chain diversification, free trade agreements (FTAs), and the global impact of emerging technologies.

Tomáš Strážay has been the director of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA) since September 2019. Prior to that, he served as deputy director and head of the Central and Southeastern Europe research program. He was also the editor of the quarterly International Issues and Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs. Tomáš is a leading expert in projects focused on regional cooperation in Central Europe and EU enlargement. He is one of the founders of the Think Visegrad - V4 Think Tank Platform. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava in 1999 and received his PhD. from the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2010.

Grzegorz Stec heads MERICS’ presence and outreach in Brussels. His research focuses on EU-China relations, exploring China’s stance towards Europe and the EU's pursuit of a cohesive China policy. Grzegorz monitors China’s relations with Member States, with particular attention paid to resilience-building policies. He also examines China’s foreign policy and its hybrid interference efforts. In 2023, he was ranked by POLITICO as one of Power 40, top policy influencers in Brussels.

Ágnes Szunomár is an associate professor and the head of the Institute of Global Studies at Corvinus University of Budapest. She is also a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics, CERS, Hungary. She extensively looks at emerging market multinationals' activities, the development of East Asian countries, and the relations between China and CEE. She is a member of the China in Europe Research Network (CHERN) where she is the head of Working Group on “Strategic sectors and infrastructure developments". 

Martin Šebeňa, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong, a visiting lecturer at the Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, and the Chief Economist at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. He has published research in the areas of global value chains, trade flows, geoeconomic policy, and supply chain finance. He has 14 years of experience in global trade and supply chain finance in Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Australia. Dr. Šebeňa received his Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of Hong Kong, a master’s degree in finance from Curtin University, and a master’s degree in political science and Chinese studies from Charles University in Prague.

Filip Šebok is the Head of Prague office at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. Filip’s research primarily looks at Chinese domestic and foreign policy, especially relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries and China’s propaganda and disinformation. He is also coordinating CEIAS involvement in the Chips Diplomacy Support Initiative suppported by the European Comission. Previously, Filip worked for think tanks the Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague, Czech Republic and Stratpol in Bratislava, Slovakia. Filip graduated in International Relations and Chinese Cultural Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and Renmin University in Beijing, studying in a full-time program taught in Mandarin. He is currently pursuing his PhD. at the Asian Studies Department of the Palacký University in Olomouc.

Matej Šimalčík is the Executive Director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia and Asia-Europe relations. Matej's research looks at China’s economic and political presence and influence in Central Europe, elite relations, corrosive capital, and the role of European legal instruments in mitigating risks posed by China. In 2022, he founded the China-Europe Academic Engagement Tracker project, which aims to bring transparency to research collaborations with Chinese entities. In 2021, he was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Governance and Social Innovation category. He holds a Master's in Law from Masaryk University (Czechia) and a Master's in International Relation (East Asian Studies) from University of Groningen (the Netherlands).

Richard Turcsányi is a Program Director at the Central Europe Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and Assistant Professor at Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. He is an author of "Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea” (Springer), co-editor of “Contemporary China: A New Superpower?” (Routledge) and has published numerous articles on Chinese foreign policy and relations between China and (Central and Eastern) Europe. In recent years he led a large-scale public opinion survey in 56 countries worldwide regarding their attitudes towards China and international affairs (sinofon.cz/surveys). He received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Masaryk University, where he also studied economy and political science. In the past, he conducted long-term study and research stays at the University of Toronto, Peking University, National Chengchi University in Taipei, and the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels. He also participated in the IVLP program of the US State Department in 2020 and was a recipient of the Taiwan Fellowship in 2014.

Róbert Vancel is a CEIAS Research Fellow and an assistant professor at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. He focuses on East Asia, with a particular interest in Japan´s foreign and security policy and relations between Japan and Central Europe. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Matej Bel University. Róbert Vancel is also an Executive Director on Institute for Democracy at UMB, a transdisciplinary center focuesd on contemporary challanges of democracy. 

Zoilo Velasco is the Deputy Head of Mission and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN of the Philippine Embassy and Permanent Mission in Vienna. He was previously Director of the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Office at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, and was assigned as First Secretary and Legal Adviser at the Philippine Embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands. He obtained his Master of Laws from Yale Law School as a Fulbright scholar, and his Bachelor of Laws from San Beda University in Manila.  He also has a degree in Msc International Finance from the Amsterdam Business School.