China Watchers​
Abstract: Recent debates have raised concerns about how academia and policy makers alike rely on country experts when trying to understand the politics of authoritarian regimes. This study argues that one possible source of bias is the experts’ network of affiliations and interactions with one another and that we therefore should make the social background and networks of country experts more transparent. We implemented this by examining experts on contemporary Chinese politics using a nomination process to establish a list of 2,200 such experts. We find that US-based and US-educated male academics continue to form the core of this community but that younger cohorts appear to be more diverse in terms of educational background, gender, and geographic location. Our findings provide not only the first analysis of the global China Watcher community but also speak to current debates about the reliability of aggregated expert assessments.
Where are the women? Gender distribution in our database
In our article, we only touched briefly on the issue of gender representation in the China Watcher community. But the general problem that women are often not recognized as experts has been noticed by China expert community: hence the NüVoices initiative that has crowdsourced compiling a list that journalists and other people looking for non-male China experts can consult.​
If you’ve read our article, then you know that only about a quarter of the China experts in our database are female. And while the youngest cohorts are closer to gender-parity, China watchers above 50 are a distinctly male-dominated community.
​
Our method of identifying China experts – indeed our very definition of this community as consisting of people who are seen as China experts by others and consider themselves to be China experts – likely produces a bias against women: we know that women are less likely to be seen as experts – and are less likely to consider themselves expert.
Gender distribution in different regions, countries and institution
​
As it turns out, the gender gap appears across almost all regions, countries and lines of work. In the figure to the left percentages and light grey areas indicate the fraction of women in the particular region. Numbers at the bottom indicate the total number of China experts from that region in our dataset (note that this is based on the database as of November 2025, while our article "China Watchers" is based on the data collected as of February 2024). Men outnumber women in all the regions - albeit with quite a range of variation from 39% women (Europe and North America (other) to 0% (Middle East).
Almost all countries in our database have a male majority among their China experts. Notable exceptions that do not just contain 1-3 China experts are Norway and Italy. Among the different types of institutions, NGOs have the highest percentage of women (41%).
​
Are female China experts different?
​
Interestingly, once a women makes it into our database, she is not that different in terms of status or network centrality: the women in our database receive approximately the same number of nominations as the men, and also make up 25% of the top 100 most nominated China Watchers.
​
Women are nevertheless less confident about their status as China expert: while the likelihood of calling themselves an expert on contemporary Chinese politics is only slightly reduced (and not statistically significant), women are less likely to see themselves as expert on elite politics (a topic we were particularly interested in) and be confident about their ability to provide us with a ranked list of the 20 most influential individuals in China.​
​
What is to be done? Who nominates female China experts?
​
If you would like to have a more gender-balanced panel of China experts, what is to be done? Quotas are obviously an option, but there are more subtle approaches:
​
1. In our survey, we tried to counteract possible biases by asking respondents twice. And even though we did not ask explicitly for women the second time around (only for experts that are "not the first that come to mind" and "less likely to be mentioned by other respondents"), respondents were more likely to nominate women here (31% vs. 26%). So try to spend even a few more minutes thinking "outside of the box" and you'll likely get a more diverse panel.
​
2. Female China experts are much more likely ​to nominate other women (41% vs. 26%). So make sure that women have a say when assembling a panel!
​
