Professor Jinghan Zeng recently joined the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests lie in politics and international relations, with a focus on China. His current research agenda centres on the “3Is”: Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Confucius Institutes (CI). He is the author of several books including Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director, Volume 1: Challenges, Controversies, and Realities (2025), Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics: National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance (2022), Slogan Politics: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy Concepts (2020) and The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion (2015), available in Chinese translation (City University of Hong Kong Press, 2016). He is also the co-editor of One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (2021). He has published over thirty refereed articles in leading journals of politics, international relations and area studies including The Pacific Review, International Affairs, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies and Third World Quarterly.

Professor Zeng currently serves as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge Forum on Technology and Global Affairs (Cambridge University Press). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Higher Education Academy (UK). He has been named in the World’s Top 2% Scientists list by Stanford University and Elsevier for five consecutive years since 2021. He has secured research grants from major international funders, including the European Commission (amounting to nearly HKD 4 million) and the National Social Science Foundation of China. He has also received consultancy funding from FTSE 100 companies such as Shell, as well as philanthropic support from organisations like Schmidt Futures (US).

Professor Zeng’s research has been covered by the journal Science and major media outlets including Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes and South China Morning Post. He draws on his research to engage audiences beyond academia. As a leading expert on AI and global affairs, Professor Zeng has taken part in Track II dialogues on AI with China and the United States, testified before the UK Parliament (AI in Weapon Committee), and advised the United Nations, the Chinese Ministry of Education, as well as the UK Cabinet Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He frequently appears in TV and radio broadcasts including the BBC, ABC Australia, Al Jazeera, China Global Television Network (CGTN) and Voice of America. He has written op-ed articles for The Diplomat, BBC (Chinese), The Conversation, South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia, Policy Forum among others.

Before joining City University of Hong Kong, Professor Zeng spent 13 years in the UK, where he built his academic career. At 31, he was appointed Professor of China and International Studies at Lancaster University (a top 7 UK University at the time), becoming one of the youngest full professors in Britain. Simultaneously, he served as Director of its Confucius Institute, leading a team of nearly 30 staff in the university. Under his guidance, the Institute flourished into an award-winning institution, receiving the prestigious Confucius Institute of the Year award from the Confucius Institute Headquarters, as well as Lancaster University’s Outstanding Contribution Award. During this time, the Institute also overcame unprecedented challenges, including the global pandemic, the sudden dissolution of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, and a political campaign by the then-ruling UK government to close Confucius Institutes. These experiences are chronicled in his three-volume memoir, Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director. The first volume was released in English in London in 2025, followed by the Chinese edition published in Hong Kong in 2026. As the first insider account of China’s most controversial overseas activity, his memoir has been featured in the South China Morning Post, Mapping Global China, Pekingnology, Oxford Global Society and others.

A native of mainland China, Professor Zeng pursued his education across three continents, earning degrees in China, the United States and the United Kingdom. He received his PhD from the University of Warwick — completing it within two years — and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Zeng also lectured at University of Cambridge, London School of Economics and Political Science, Royal College of Defence Studies (UK), LUISS (Italy), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Tsinghua University (China) and Zhejiang University (China). He has also hold visiting professor/fellow positions at numerous universities worldwide including Tsinghua University, University of Navarra (Spain) and University of Warwick. Before embarking on his academic career, he worked for the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York City.