Experts & Staff

François Godement

ECFR Alumni · Director, Asia and China Programme
Senior Policy Fellow

Areas of expertise

Chinese and East Asian strategic and international affairs, issues of integration and conflicts

Languages

French, English, Mandarin

Biography

François Godement is the director of ECFR’s Asia & China programme and a senior policy fellow at ECFR. He is a non-resident senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and an outside consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A long-time professor at France’s National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations and Sciences Po, he created Asia Centre IFRI at the Paris-based Institut Français des Relations Internationales (1985-2005). In 2005 he founded Asia Centre as an independent centre for research on Asian issues as they intersect global debates. He is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de la rue d’Ulm (Paris), where he majored in history, and he was a postgraduate student at Harvard University. In 1995 he co-founded the European committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), which he co-chaired until 2008. He has also been a member of the advisory board for the Europe China Academic Network (ECAN).

He is the editor of China Analysis, a quarterly analytical survey of Chinese news and debate published by ECFR. His recent publications include China at the gates: A new power audit of EU-China relations” (Co-author: Abigael Vasselier, 2017), “Expanded ambitions, shrinking achievements: How China sees the global order” (2017), Expanded ambitions, shrinking achievements: How China sees the global order” (2017), “China’s market economy status and the European interest” (2016), “Contemporary China: between Mao and Market” (2015).

He is also a frequent contributor to media and academic debates on Asia and China.

Investment screening: A victory for Europe

This week, the EU reached a political agreement on a framework for screening foreign direct investment at unprecedented speed, and took a step forward in building trust

Hand-outs and bail-outs: China’s lobbyists in Italy

Italy's new coalition government is moving the country on the path to bankruptcy, causing Italy to look overseas at China for support in pressuring the EU to bail them out

China and the last of the multilateralists

As the trade war between China and the United States heats up, Europeans should think hard about who they turn to for assistance 

Big in Asia: Behind the rhetoric of EU relations with China and Japan

The last ten days have been big for the EU and its partners in Asia, namely China and Japan. With EU-China and EU-Japan summits resulting in historic agreements, the EU is slowly strengthening its relationships with allies to the east. 

Publications

Articles

Investment screening: A victory for Europe

This week, the EU reached a political agreement on a framework for screening foreign direct investment at unprecedented speed, and took a step forward in building trust

Hand-outs and bail-outs: China’s lobbyists in Italy

Italy's new coalition government is moving the country on the path to bankruptcy, causing Italy to look overseas at China for support in pressuring the EU to bail them out

China and the last of the multilateralists

As the trade war between China and the United States heats up, Europeans should think hard about who they turn to for assistance 

Big in Asia: Behind the rhetoric of EU relations with China and Japan

The last ten days have been big for the EU and its partners in Asia, namely China and Japan. With EU-China and EU-Japan summits resulting in historic agreements, the EU is slowly strengthening its relationships with allies to the east. 

Trump-Kim summit: Gambler’s diplomacy

The agreement is a dead end sold as the road to denuclearisation and peace – and, as such, it beggars belief

The ECFR Power Audits

The four power audits show that Europeans, particularly when working together, retain the capacity to cooperate and compete effectively with all these powers.  But they also show that, in each case, Europe is failing to do so. 

Why China (probably) won’t go to trade war with America

The US protecting its own technology is not the same as a trade war. But were such a war to emerge, it may well be the apparently invulnerable Xi Jinping rather than the bullishly confident Donald Trump who finds his country worse off as a result

Specials

Podcasts

Events

In the media