Richard Javad Heydarian is an Asia-based academic and policy adviser, currently a Professorial Chairholder in Geopolitics at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and previously Visiting Fellow at National Chengchi University (Taiwan). He has delivered lectures at the world’s leading universities, including Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia universities, and is the author of, among other books, The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). As a columnist, he has written for the world’s leading publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and is a regular contributor to Aljazeera English, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post , and the Straits Times.