Zhenyao Li is a Clarendon Scholar and DPhil student in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His research focuses on international political economy, particularly economic security, asymmetric interdependence, and China's evolving role in the global political economy. He is interested in how states create, manage, and respond to strategic economic dependencies, and how trade, investment, and global production networks shape the distribution and exercise of economic power. His broader research interests include economic statecraft, industrial policy, and the political economy of globalisation.
Part of his research examines China–Africa economic relations, particularly the interactions between Chinese capital and African states. His work has explored debt sustainability in Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway project, patterns of Chinese investment and state–business relationships across African economies, and the evolving roles of Chinese enterprises in overseas infrastructure development.
Before joining Oxford, he studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Tsinghua University, where he was a Schwarzman Scholar.
