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Sunny Han is a fourth-year Honours student in International Relations at the Australian National University. His research focuses on Chinese foreign policy in the Pacific Islands region, where he examines the Austronesian narrative in Chinese foreign policy discourse. He has worked as a Research Assistant at the ANU Centre for Social Policy Research and at the Australian Centre on China in the World, where he supported research on Chinese Australians' involvement in Indigenous politics. Sunny is currently an intern for Events and Public Engagement at the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Steve Chan is College Professor of Distinction Emeritus and formerly chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research interests focus on international relations, political economy, foreign policy, decision-making, East Asia, and especially Sino-American relations. His publications include thirty books and over two hundred articles and chapters. His recent books are The Future of Pacific Asia (Routledge, 2026, co-authored with Weixing Hu); Gauging China’s Influence Abroad (Cambridge University Press, 2026); Mobilizing the Past (Stanford University Press, 2025); Punctuated Equilibria and Sino-American Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Fuses, Chains, and Backlashes (Oxford University Press, 2025); Geography and International Conflict (Routledge, 2025; co-authored with Weixing Hu); Taiwan and the Danger of a Sino-American War (Cambridge University Press, 2024); Culture, Economic Growth, and Interstate Power Shifts (Cambridge University Press, 2024); Rumbles of Thunder (Columbia University Press, 2022); Contesting Revisionism (Oxford University Press, 2021; co-authored with Huiyun Feng, Kai He, and Weixing Hu); and Thucydides’ Trap? (University of Michigan Press, 2020).

Francis A. Beer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his A. B. (1960) from Harvard and M. A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1967) from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, he has been associated in different ways with the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques and the University of Bordeaux in France; the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven in the Netherlands; the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom; the Ohio State University, the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, and Texas in the United States. His books include: Meanings of War and Peace; Peace Against War: The Ecology of International Violence and Integration and Disintegration in NATO: Processes of Alliance Cohesion and Prospects for Atlantic Community as well as related monographs on The Political Economy of Alliances and How Much War in History. He has edited Alliances: Latent War Communities in the Contemporary World. He has co-edited with Christ’l De Landtsheer Metaphorical World Politics and, with Robert Hariman, Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations. He has been Chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly and President of the International Studies Association/West. He co-edited with Ted Gurr a series of Sage books on "Violence, Conflict, Cooperation." Professor Beer is listed in Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in America.

Dr Steven T. Zech is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Monash University where he teaches courses on contemporary security topics, political violence, and comparative politics. His general research interests include political violence, human security, militias, contentious politics, civility, and countering threats to liberal democracy.

Dr Premesha Saha is a Senior Policy Fellow at Asia Society Australia. Her research focuses on emerging trends in Indo-Pacific geopolitics and regional security architecture. Her expertise includes minilateral cooperative frameworks, great power competition, India’s role and policy in the Indo-Pacific. Her work also explores India–Australia relations, India’s Act East Policy, and India’s broader engagement with Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania, and maritime security in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Anshu Kumar is a Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He frequently writes on Russia, deterrence, and matters of international security. His latest work, Russia’s “preventive deterrence” and the Ukraine war, appeared in Defense & Security Analysis.

Dimitra Staikou is a Greek international journalist, political analyst, author and playwright specialising in India, South Asia, the Indo-Pacific, international relations and strategic affairs. Her work on geopolitics, security and international policy has been published and republished by a range of international media and policy platforms, including Eurasia Review, Modern Diplomacy, EU Reporter, EuropaWire, Daily Express UK, Pressenza and other international publications. 

Dr Misa Tomono is a member of the 2026 Indo-Pacific Cooperation Network. She is a medical doctor and PhD candidate specialising in multi-sectoral preparedness and crisis coordination. With experience across disaster response, public health research, and international institutions, her work focuses on strengthening evidence-based, resilient systems for all-hazards emergency preparedness and response.

Cheri Pong is a Hong Kong–based analyst specialising in international political economy, sanctions policy, and great-power competition. She holds an MPhil in Political Science and writes on economic statecraft, financial coercion, and the strategic competition between China and the United States.