Areas of Expertise

• Technology and geopolitics 
• China’s technical standardization power
• China’s politics of 5G
• EU-China and Germany-China relations
• Foreign policy analysis of China
• The political economy of the Chinese party-state
• Hong Kong politics

Short Bio

Tim Rühlig was a senior research fellow in DGAP’s Center for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Technology until August 31, 2024. From November 2023 until July 2024, he was seconded to the European Commission where he served as a “China fellow” at I.D.E.A, the advisory hub of the president. He also coordinated the working group on high technology and innovation of the “China in Europe Research Network” (CHERN), an EU Cost Action.

At DGAP, Rühlig conducted research on the growth of China’s power as the country’s footprint in digital technology increased, as well as on EU-China and Germany-China relations. He continued his research on technical standardization and wireless infrastructure that he had begun at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs from 2018 to 2021 and as a research fellow with DGAP’s former Technology and Global Affairs Program from September 2021 until December 2022. 

Rühlig’s book China’s Foreign Policy Contradictions was published by Oxford University Press in early 2022. His writing appeared in China Perspectives, Development & Change, and China Review, among other publications. In 2018, he served as the rotating chair of the European Think-Tank Network on China (ETNC).

Rühlig earned his PhD from Frankfurt University with a thesis on sovereign state control in China’s foreign policy. He studied international relations and peace and conflict research at Frankfurt University and the Technical University of Darmstadt, as well as political science and cultural anthropology at Tübingen University.

Languages

English, German

[Last updated: September 2024]