Linda Jakobson, internationally recognised China analyst
Linda Jakobson has been a student of Chinese politics and China's foreign and security policy for the past three decades. She is internationally known for her publications about China's foreign policy. Her China-related career includes posts as a teacher (at the Shandong Institute of Economics in China), a lecturer (at Hong Kong City University), a foreign correspondent (in Beijing), and senior researcher and program director (at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
She is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books about Chinese and East Asian politics and society as well as the author of over 100 other publications about Chinese politics and society, China's foreign and security policy, the Taiwan Straits, China's energy security, and China's Arctic aspirations. Two of her books and one report have received awards.
In 2014 Linda Jakobson became an independent researcher and founded China Matters Ltd. At the same time she took up the position of Visiting Professor at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. She is also a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. From 2011 to 2013 she served as the Lowy Institute's East Asia Program Director.
Before moving to Sydney in 2011 Jakobson lived and worked in China for 22 years. Her last position in Beijing was Director of the China and Global Security Programme and Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 2009-2011. A Mandarin speaker, Jakobson was a Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard University in 1990.
Her recent publications include China's Unpredictable Maritime Security Actors (Lowy Institute, December 2014), "Australia's relations with China in Turbulence" (The Asan Forum February 2014); China's Arctic Aspirations (SIPRI Policy Paper 2012 with Jingchao Peng); Australia-China ties: In search of political trust (Lowy Institute Policy Brief 2011); and New Foreign Policy Actors in China (SIPRI Policy Paper 2010 with Dean Knox).
Jakobson's current research focuses on Australia-China ties, US-China ties, China's foreign and security policy, and China's Arctic policies.
She and her husband, Chris Lanzit, also a Mandarin speaker, live in Pyrmont, New South Wales.
