Yen-Chi Lu studied history at Soochow University (Taiwan) and political science at Free University of Berlin. He completed the master's degree in political science at the University of Bonn. Since December 2020, Yen-Chi Lu has been working as a Research Assistant for Prof. Maximilian Mayer. He supervises the research project "Infrastructures of Logistics".

International Relations | Global China | Digital Autonomy and Dependence 

In his dissertation "Corporate Power and Peripheral Stacks: Chinese ICT Firms and "Smart Infrastructures" in the Periphery", Yen-Chi Lu examines how Chinese ICT companies are reshaping the position of peripheral countries in global value chains. Despite the growing disparities between the technological capabilities of a handful of leading countries and the global 'rest' he argues that collaboration and partnerships with Chinese companies represent a strategic opportunity for the periphery to promote indigenous ICT providers and gain more technological autonomy. The project aims to deepen understanding of the dynamics of the global dependency structure in the digital age and China's role in it.

• Surveying the Strategic Digital Policy: Options and Limitations of Digital Autonomy in Relation to Dependency and Fragmentation through the Increasing Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (funded by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung)
• Infrastructures of China’s Modernity and Their Global Constitutive Effects
• Infrastructures of Logistics

Maximilian Mayer and Yen-Chi Lu, “Auf Dem Weg Zur Digitalen Selbstbestimmung? Europa Hat Die Konsequenzen Seiner Digitalen Abhängigkeit Noch Kaum Erkannt” (Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2022).

• “Illusions of Autonomy? Measuring the Global Digital Dependence Structure". Paper presented in the section of “Platform Geopolitics, Digital Sovereignty, and Decentralization” at the 34th Annual SASE Meeting “Fractious Connections: Anarchy, Activism, Coordination, and Control”, held by the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 9-11. July 2022. (Co-author: Maximilian Mayer)
• “Infrastructures and autonomy: digital technologies and global structures of dependence”. Paper presented in the virtual panel of “The Missing Mass: Infrastructure and World Politics Panel II” at the ISA 2022 Annual Convention “A Wider Discipline For A Smaller World”, Nashville, USA, March 28th -April 2nd, 2022. (Co-author: Maximilian Mayer)

• Speaker: “Zur strategischen Gestaltung digitaler Abhängigkeit“, Ein Globalisierungsmodell für das digitale Zeitalter:
  Ein Frühstücksgespräch, Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin, 22. June 2022, Berlin. (Co-speaker: Maximilian Mayer)
• Speaker: "Results from the 2020 Data Fragmentation Index: Emerging Pattern within the Landscape of Data Regulations", International Online-Conference „Digital Fragmentations and Digital Sovereignty “, 18. September 2021, Bonn.
• Speaker: “Digitale Dependenz - Ein neuer Index”, Wissenssalon – Der wissenschaftliche Flurfunk, Gemeinsame Veranstaltung von CGS und CASSIS (Universität Bonn), 29. April 2021, Bonn.
• Speaker: “Einführung in den neuen Digitalen Dependenz-Index”, Online-Workshop mit der Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, 16. März 2021, Bonn.
• Speaker: „Das Internet als Bedrohung für Autokraten. Das Beispiel China“, Workshop „Cyber-Sicherheitskonzepte im internationalen Vergleich“, BICC (Bonn International Centre for Conversion), 23. Mai 2019, Bonn.

Last updated: 15 January, 2023