Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Emory University
Tony Zirui Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Emory University. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and an Associate at the University of Oxford China Centre. His research focuses on authoritarian politics and political communication in China, examining how the Chinese government uses censorship and propaganda to manipulate domestic and international information environments and generate public support for these apparatuses. His work also explores how foreign policy events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, shape Chinese public opinion on the use of military force.
More recently, he has been investigating how China and other autocratizing regimes communicate democratic backsliding and its downstream consequences for democratic values. His research also extends to Vietnam, Malaysia, Hungary, Poland, Türkiye, and Taiwan. His work has been published in leading political science journals such as the Journal of Politics, International Organization, and Comparative Political Studies. His dissertation won the 2025 American Political Science Association Thomas E. Patterson Best Dissertation Award in Political Communication.
Quarterly essays on greater China by scholars who study the region closely, plus notice of our Atlanta events. Published continuously since 2002.