Jarmila Ptáčková graduated from the Humboldt University in Berlin, specializing in Chinese and Central Asian Studies. She obtained her Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies from the same institution. Her research focuses mainly on Chinese development policy and subsequent social and economic changes in China’s minority areas, on China’s ethnic policy as well as on the role of China’s minorities in the PRC’s cultural diplomacy. Currently, she is affiliated with the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.Ondřej Klimeš is a researcher at the Oriental Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences. His expertise is in politics of modern and contemporary Xinjiang and China. His expertise is in contemporary Chinese politics with focus on ideology and propaganda, ethnic policy in Xinjiang, and China’s public diplomacy and influence operations in Turkey and Central Asia. He received his Ph.D. from the Charles University in Prague in 2012. Gary Rawnsley is Professor of Public Diplomacy and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). Working at the intersection of international relations and international communications, Professor Rawnsley has published widely on propaganda, public and cultural diplomacy, soft power and the role of the media in democratisation.Jens Damm is an Associate Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT), Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He was awarded his Ph.D. at Free University of Berlin in 2002. Previously, he was an Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies, Chang Jung University, Tainan, Taiwan and an Assistant Professor at Free University Berlin. From 2015 to 2017, he was also affiliated with the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences within the project 'China’s Cultural Diplomacy: Role of Non-State Actors and Regional Variations'. He is currently also a board member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies.
