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.

Democratic Asia changes course

In the past few years, almost all of East Asia’s fully fledged democracies have changed leadership – but this has gone rather unnoticed by European observers who focus on China alone

The EU meets China: united we stand?

The EU delegation has prepared an unusually full agenda for the annual EU-China Summit. However, there is a real danger they will go home empty-handed, and the Chinese will hijack the event to lecture about Taiwan and the Dalai Lama.

China and the world – convergence or collision?

Will the rise of China lead to inevitable conflict on the international stage? Or will China mellow and adapt to international norms as it grapples with the new requirements of its phenomenal growth?

Burma: Sharing Power with the Generals

Targeted sanctions are a good idea ? but the goal must be to convince the Junta that they are better off with a political process

In the media