Ivana Karásková

Ivana Karásková has been a China Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO), a Prague-based foreign policy think tank, since 2007. She founded and has been coordinating ChinfluenCE, an international project mapping China’s influence in Central Europe (Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia). The internationally acclaimed project revealed how the China discourse in local media changed after acquisition of outlets by Chinese CEFC company, and publicized links between Czech politicians and the pro-China lobby. ChinfluenCE results were presented to the European Parliament, to Members of the U.S. Congress, and widely quoted in European, U.S., and Australian press. Karásková also founded and coordinates China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE), a platform gathering more than 40 China researchers from Central and Eastern Europe. CHOICE analyzes and critically dissects China-led 17+1 initiatives and observes Chinese activities in the region. Karásková holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and other university degrees in Journalism and Mass Communication, European Studies, and International Relations. She lectures on E.U.-China relations, China’s geopolitics, and security in Northeast Asia at Charles University, Czech Republic. She completed research and study stays in China, Taiwan, and the U.S. (as a Fulbright-Masaryk scholar at Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University). She is an alumna of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitors Program on Investment Screening Mechanism and a member of the China expert pool at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE) in Helsinki.