Yi Liu is a doctoral candidate in International History and Politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID). Liu’s research concerns the global economic integration and disintegration of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on how transnational business and technological actors shaped states’ foreign economic policy. Regionally, the work centres on Cold War East Asia and its interaction with the Western capitalist world.

Liu’s doctoral dissertation reconstructs the People’s Republic of China’s foreign trade with the West during the Mao era. Drawing on multinational archives, it assesses the effectiveness of the Western embargo on Communist China’s external economic relations, and analyses the statecraft the Chinese Communist Party deployed to challenge Western multilateral export regulations and to advance its foreign and domestic objectives. Throughout, the study foregrounds the merchants, firms, engineers and technocrats who moved goods and knowledge across the embargo line.

Liu holds an M.A. in International History and Politics from IHEID and a B.A. in Diplomatic Studies from China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing.