Niva Yau is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Her research work focuses on China-Central Asia relations and China’s new overseas security management infrastructure and initiatives including foreign bases and stations, the politics of foreign infrastructure, private security companies, intelligence network, in-China security training programs, governance export, information operations, and others. Between 2018 and 2023, Yau was based at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where she worked on commissioned research on China’s foreign policy, trade, and security in its western neighborhood, covering Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Yau’s commentary and analysis have been featured in BBC, the Independent, Nikkei Asia, the Economist, Vice, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera and others. In May 2022, Yau testified in Washington, DC, for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Originally from Hong Kong, she graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a degree in political science and is a native speaker of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English and is learning Russian.