I am a DPhil student in Area Studies (China) at St Antony’s College, and a Dahrendorf Scholar at the European Studies Centre. My research examines the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as a site of geopolitical and diplomatic contestation in EU–China climate relations, with a particular focus on how its implementation reshapes bilateral tensions and the normative terms of global climate governance. I hold an MSc in International and European Politics from the University of Edinburgh. Before that, I studied Hispanic Language and Literature, and Law at Shantou University, a combination that first drew me toward questions of institutions, norms, and cross-cultural political relations.
DPhil topic
My research examines the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as a site of contestation in EU–China climate relations. CBAM’s direct economic impact on China remains limited, yet it has provoked a sharp and sustained diplomatic response, a disjuncture that conventional trade and interest-based frameworks struggle to explain. I argue that what is at stake is primarily normative. CBAM represents the EU’s attempt to extend climate governance authority beyond its borders and establish itself as a legitimate rule-setter in the global green transition. China’s resistance is not simply a reaction to costs, but may reflect a broader contestation over authority and rule-setting in global climate governance. To explain this dynamic, the thesis draws on role theory and identity construction to examine how each side frames its own position and delegitimises the other’s, offering analytical purchase that extends beyond the CBAM dispute to EU–China relations more broadly.
