Richard Javad Heydarian is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Philippines, Asian Center, and formerly a Research Fellow at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He is a columnist at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and has written for the world’s leading publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and is a regular contributor to Aljazeera English, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, and the Straits Times. His latest books are Asia’s New Battlefield (Zed, 2015), The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Global Struggle for Mastery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). He is also a regular contributor to leading global think tanks such as Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Brooking Institution, and Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His forthcoming book is China’s New Empire (Melbourne University Press).