Andy Chin is a PhD candidate in International Political Economy at King’s College London. Previously, he was a research associate at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research mainly focuses on cross-Taiwan Strait economic exchanges within the global IT and semiconductor value chains.

He holds an MSc in China in Comparative Perspective (2025) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MSc in International Political Economy (2022) and a BSc in Mathematics and Economics (2021) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Research interests

• Global IT and semiconductor value chains
• Cross-Strait Relations
• The Political Economy of East Asia

PhD research

My research examines how cross-Strait economic interactions between Taiwan and China have shaped economic and technological developments in both economies. Focusing on the IT and semiconductor industries from the early 1990s to the late 2010s, it investigates how firm-level collaborations and state strategies influenced the success and limits of technology transfer. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines network analysis of inter-firm relations, case studies of key Taiwanese and Chinese firms and field interviews, this project seeks to explain why China achieved technological upgrading in some IT sectors but not others through its economic exchanges with Taiwan, and how evolving geopolitical and domestic factors have shaped this process.

PhD supervisors

Dr Joseph Baines

Professor Ramon Pacheco Pardo