Interning at the European Council on Foreign Relations
About the author: Ana Chen ’23 is an FSI Global Policy Intern with the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is currently studying International Relations and East Asian Studies at Stanford University.
At the end of my first two weeks with the European Council on Foreign Relations, I find myself reflecting on my identity and my study of geopolitics.
My internship with ECFR marks my first time living in Germany (to say nothing of working here!). I went to Berlin directly after a quarter in Oxford, knowing that a mere three months across the Atlantic Oean — in a deeply academic college town, no less — was not enough time for me to understand life and work culture in Europe. Indeed, what is so invaluable about my internship is not just the experience of working at a think tank, but of living in a new country. Until this year, I spent my entire life between the U.S. and China, following the script of a Chinese American whose interactions with China lie in either her homeland (China) or what some scholars term her “host” country (the States). Living and working in Germany has made me deeply aware of the far-reaching and global consequences of the U.S.-China dialogue. I am currently compiling a book with ECFR Director Mark Leonard on modern Chinese political thought and policy, and ECFR and Europe are far from passive, third-party spectators. For me, the study of China-Europe exchanges is not only an academic, but a creative, pursuit, as I believe that the U.S. can learn from European perspectives and engagements with China. In contrast to my work at previous U.S.-based research institutions, my current work starts with genuine curiosity towards the semantics and development of Chinese political thought, rather than with the age-old policy-oriented concerns about security and economics. This more abstract level of work has, in many ways, served as the perfect complement to my academic plan. I can remove myself from the cognitive dissonances that come with studying the hot-button topics of the U.S.-China relationship as a Chinese American.
I’ve now examined China through multiple lens (historical, theoretical, sociopolitical), from multiple perspectives (that of an American college student, an European intern, and a Shenzhen resident), and with multiple tools (field research, archival research, activism). As I enter my third week at the ECFR, I hope to gain not only a deeper understanding of China’s position in the world, but new frameworks through which to study China.
