China

Gesine Weber is a fellow on GMF’s Geostrategy team, where she works on European security and defense issues. Based in Paris, she focuses on EU defense initiatives, security and defense policy of the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Europe's role in the global order. 

During a 2024 fellowship at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Weber led a research project on European balancing in the Indo-Pacific in the context of US-China competition. 

Prior to joining GMF, she worked as a defense policy adviser at the German parliament and as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Shanghai. Weber is pursuing a PhD in defense studies at King’s College London, where she is part of the European Foreign Policy Research Group and contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy. She is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for International Security.

Weber holds a master’s degree in European affairs from Sciences Po in Paris and another master’s degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her writing and commentary appears regularly in English, French, and German in European and other international media, including the BBC, the Neue Züercher Zeitung, Politico, and France 24. 

Dr. Minxin Pei joined GMF as a visiting senior fellow for Indo-Pacific in 2012. As part of the Indo-Pacific team, Pei advances GMF’s work on the implications of China’s rise for the West and supports the Stockholm China Forum.

In addition to his work with GMF, Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker Professor of Government and director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 1994) and China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006). His research has focused on democratization, China’s political development, the Chinese Communist Party, U.S.–China relations, and Chinese foreign policy. Pei is a columnist for L’Espresso and the Indian Express, and a regular contributor to The Diplomat. He has written for the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek International, and the International Herald Tribune. He received his PhD in political science from Harvard University.

Dr. Aaron Friedberg joined GMF as a visiting senior fellow for Indo-Pacific in 2011.  He is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University with expertise in the international relations of Asia, as well as U.S. foreign and defense policy.

Andrew Small is a Berlin-based senior transatlantic fellow with GMF's Indo-Pacific program. He returned to GMF after a period of leave in 2023-2024 to work as the first China fellow at IDEA, the advisory hub that reports to the European Commission president. He is the author of “The Rupture”, also titled “No Limits”, about the transformation of European and American policy toward China. It was named one of the Financial Times’ 2022 Politics Books of the Year. He also wrote, in 2015, “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics”. His articles and papers have been published in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and many other journals, magazines, and newspapers.

Small was based in GMF’s Brussels office for five years and the Washington, DC office for ten years, and has worked as a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He has provided congressional testimony on several occasions, including to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Small was educated at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Jonas Parello-Plesner is a visiting fellow in GMF's Indo-Pacific program. His research focuses on Asia and China and relations with EU and the United States. Parello-Plesner has also worked at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) as a Senior Policy Fellow with a focus on European-Chinese relations.

Lindsay Gorman is managing director and senior fellow of GMF’s Technology Program. She is also a venture scientist with Deep Science Ventures focused on AI and biotechnology. A quantum physicist and computer scientist by training, Gorman leads work on the US-China emerging technology competition, AI and democracy, and transatlantic innovation. 

Gorman recently served in the Biden White House as a senior adviser on emerging technology, national security, and democracy issues. At the Office of Science and Technology and the National Security Council, she crafted US technology competition and national security strategy and led international technology initiatives through the US-EU Trade and Technology Council and Quad. In particular, she founded and led the AI cooperation workstream in the Trade and Technology Council. She was also the principal architect of the Advancing Technology for Democracy agenda of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal. 

Gorman’s career spans fifteen years at the intersection of technology and international security. She is the former CEO of a technology consulting firm she founded, Politech Advisory. She has served as an expert contributor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission; technology adviser to US Senator Mark Warner; consultant to Schmidt Futures on 5G; and fellow with the National Academy of Sciences. Her technical background includes building self-driving cars for the DARPA Urban Challenge and pioneering experiments on topological insulators, which she published in Nature Physics.

Gorman regularly delivers keynote addresses and speaks at popular conferences such as South by Southwest. She has testified before the US Senate and US House on AI, cybersecurity, and technology innovation. Her research and analyses have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, and she frequently appears in TV and radio interviews on CNN, MSNBC, CBS’s Face the Nation, NPR, the BBC, and Bloomberg. She is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Truman National Security Project, and an awardee of the US State Department Speaker Program. Gorman holds a BA in Physics from Princeton University and an MS in Applied Physics from Stanford University. 

Noah Barkin is a visiting senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Program based in Berlin. He specializes in Europe’s relationship with China and the implications of China’s rise for the transatlantic relationship.

Mareike Ohlberg is a senior fellow in the Indo-Pacific Program and leads the Stockholm China Forum. She is based at GMF’s Berlin Office. Before joining GMF, Mareike worked as an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, where she focused on China’s media and digital policies as well as the Chinese Communist Party’s influence campaigns in Europe. Prior to that, she was an An Wang postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a postdoctoral fellow at Shih-Hsin University in Taipei. She spent several years living and working in Greater China. She is co-author of the book Hidden Hand: How the Communist Party of China is Reshaping the World (2020). Mareike has a doctoral degree in Chinese studies from the University of Heidelberg and a master’s degree in East Asian regional studies from Columbia University. She is a frequent commentator in the media on the global implications of China’s rise.

Bonnie S. Glaser is managing director of GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. She is a co-author of US-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis (Brookings Press, April 2023). She was previously senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Glaser has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and US policy for more than three decades.