In the meantime we will continue to explore how opinion diffusion and homophily (the tendency to turn to experts similar to themselves), but also pressure from different governments and other powerful actors influences the conclusions that the China expert community reaches.

And while we’re quite sure that we have managed to capture the core of this network in our article, we continue to reach out to China Watchers in the less represented professions and regions – so if you receive an e-mail from us, please fill out our very short survey!

For more information, check out the article (doi.org/10.1017/S104...), our website (autpol.net) and follow us on social media (Bluesky and X).

Our article “China Watchers” in PS: Political Science & Politics shows that this community is still dominated by US-based and US-educated academics, but that younger cohorts are increasingly diverse in terms of gender, educational background and geographic location.