Dr. Elisa Zhai Autry is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Before joining Hoover, she served as the chief policy advisor for Public Diplomacy on China and the East Asia–Pacific at the U.S. Department of State.
While the influence of religion on Chinese and Taiwanese politics is little understood in the West, a recent “red rope incident” at a Taiwanese Buddhist temple reveals how deeply intertwined spirituality and politics remain on both sides of the Taiwan Strait
Elisa Zhai AutryJune 10, 2026
The CCP increasingly markets itself to the Global South as a defender of civilizational pluralism against Western notions of Human Rights, masking its own Marxist ideological commitments
Elisa Zhai AutryJanuary 19, 2026