Professional Affiliation

Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)

Expert Bio

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Dr. Mastro was previously an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Her current research interests focus on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. Dr. Mastro is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an inaugural Wilson Center China Fellow. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a Senior China Analyst at the Pentagon. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016. She has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, International Security, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Survival, and Asian Security, and is the author of The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019). She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found on twitter @osmastro and www.orianaskylarmastro.com.

Wilson Center Project

The Heart of the Matter: Understanding Chinese Intentions in the South China Sea and Implications for U.S. Strategy

Project Summary

How should the United States understand Chinese intentions? Policy makers and scholar alike have noted the importance of more effectively deciphering what China wants and how Beijing plans to achieve its goals to best cater U.S. strategy. Nowhere is this confusion more prevalent and more important to dissipate than in China’s approach to the South China Sea. Yet, there is a lack of consensus about what China is trying to accomplish in the South China Sea and how the United States should respond. This research project seeks to address these issues. First, it creates a comprehensive framework for how to best decipher state intentions from discourse, capabilities and behavior. It then applies these metrics to the case of China in the South China see to provide insights into a number of critical questions. This research has implications for regional security and U.S.-China great power competition.