Zhu Zhang

Zhu Zhang is the Newman Post-Doctoral Fellow at the OU Institute for U.S.-China Issues in the College of International Studies. She conducts her research in comparative politics with a focus on Chinese politics and state-business relations.

Her book project, "Wealth without Power: The Rise of Chinese Private Business Elites and Their Relationship to the Communist Party" examines how the Chinese Communist Party incorporates and controls the rising super-rich in China in order to prevent state capture and maintain regime stability. Her research on China is part of a broader agenda that looks at the state-business relationship in transitional regimes and authoritarian resilience.

Before joining CIS, Zhu was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Tulane University in 2021 and holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the Pennsylvania State University and a B.A. in History (minor in Chinese Literature) from Shanghai Normal University. Between 2011-2013, She worked as a junior research scholar at Arizona State University, where her work focused on U.S.-China relations and science & technology policy in China.