Dr. Bonny Lin

“Bonny will add to our strong China and Asia team with her deep expertise on emerging security challenges,” said CSIS president and CEO John J. Hamre.

Dr. Lin has spent the last decade analyzing China’s and Taiwan’s foreign and defense policies for the U.S. government. Most recently, she was the acting associate director of RAND Project AIR FORCE’s Strategy and Doctrine Program, and she led multiple large teams of RAND experts to assess different aspects of U.S. competition with China, including U.S.-China competition for influence in the Indo-Pacific and China’s use of gray zone tactics against U.S. allies and partners. Her research advised senior leaders in the Department of Defense, including military leaders at U.S. Pacific Air Forces and U.S. Army Pacific.

“Bonny is first in class. We look forward to her innovations on the China Power project and her insights into the security dynamics in the Taiwan Strait,” said Michael J. Green, CSIS senior vice president for Asia.

Dr. Lin began her work for the U.S. government as an associate political scientist at RAND, where she researched on Chinese military developments and foreign policy. She took a leave from RAND to serve in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2015 to 2018, where she was director for Taiwan, country director for China, and then senior adviser for China. In her roles at the Pentagon, she was responsible for U.S. defense policies toward Taiwan and China. She received the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Medal for Exceptional Public Service for her work formulating, drafting, and negotiating the Department of Defense’s proposed Crisis Deconfliction and Communication Framework with China.