DR. SARAH KIRCHBERGER

Dr. Sarah Kirchberger is Academic Director at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK), a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and Vice President of the German Maritime Institute (DMI). She was previously Assistant Professor of Sinology at Hamburg University and has served as a naval analyst with shipbuilder TKMS. She is the author of ‘Assessing China’s Naval Power: Technological Innovation, Economic Constraints, and Strategic Implications’ (Springer, 2015), co-author of ‘The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition’ (Atlantic Council, 2021) and co-editor and contributor of ‘Russia-China Relations: Emerging Alliance or Eternal Rivals?’ (Springer, 2022). Her research focuses on China’s undersea warfare technologies; PLAN modernization; Chinese defense-industrial development; military-technological co-operation between China, Russia, and Ukraine; EDTs in the maritime sphere; and on the strategic importance of the South China Sea. In 2023, she has testified on Chinese undersea warfare before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Kirchberger studied Sinology in Hamburg, Taipei and Trier and holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Sinology from the University of Hamburg.

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