William Piekos is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, where his research focused on alignment policies in Southeast Asia, US-China competition for influence, and Indo-Pacific security issues. Previously, he was a nonresident WSD-Handa fellow at the Pacific Forum and worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. His analysis and commentary on Chinese foreign policy and US policy in the Indo-Pacific region has appeared in the South China Morning Post, Center for Advanced China Research, Council on Foreign Relations, and CNN, among others. He received his BA in International Studies from Middlebury College.