Sun Degang is a professor of political science at the Institute of International Studies and the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He was the editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis) and a professor at and the deputy director of the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, China. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies from September 2018 to September 2019, a senior associate member at Oxford University’s St Antony’s College, and an academic visitor to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (2012-13), University of Denver (2007-08), and University of Hong Kong (2004-05). His research interests are Middle Eastern politics and international relations, great power strategies in the Middle East, and China’s Middle East diplomacy.