Ties Dams is a Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute. His research focuses on China’s geopolitical strategy and European responses to it. In two distinct fields he holds in-depth expertise. First, great powers’ evolving narrative strategies, or the geopolitical power of discursive, ideological or ‘soft’ strategies. Second, geopolitical risk and financial markets, with special reference to China’s growing importance to European investors.
In 2018 he published the first Dutch language monograph on the life and rule of president Xi Jinping. It quickly became a bestseller. He frequently appears on radio and TV as a geopolitical expert. He lectures on geopolitical strategy at the University of Amsterdam and is a popular public speaker. At Clingendael, he also engages in private-sector consultancy.
Ties was educated as a political theorist in Utrecht, Xiamen, Hongkong and London. Read his article in the Clingendael Spectator (our magazine), the winner of the OPEN Call-essay competition by De Balie and Stichting Amsterdams Comité 4 en 5 Mei.