"China’s Vulnerability Paradox,” recently published by Oxford University Press, is the winner of the 2025 IPE Best book award from the International Studies Association and the 2025 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize.
The book presents an original framework to explain the uneven transformations in global commodity markets resulting from China’s contemporary, dramatic economic growth. At times, China displays vulnerabilities towards global commodity markets because of unequal positions of market power. Why is it that Chinese stakeholders are sometimes unable to shape markets in their preferred direction? Why have some markets undergone fundamental changes while other similar ones did not, including uneven liberalization dynamics across markets? And what does this mean for current debates around critical minerals and economic security? At a time of deepening US-China economic tensions, this book provides an alternative, granular understanding of the interacting dynamics between the political economy of Chinese and global markets.
Bio:
Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in New York, a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada in Vancouver and a non-resident Fellow with the Centre for China Studies, National Taiwan University in Taipei.
Dr. Massot is the author of China’s Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets (Oxford University Press, 2024) – Winner of the 2025 Best Book Award in International Political Economy from the International Studies Association, and the 2025 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize.
In 2022, she was a member of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee. She also served as the Senior Advisor for China and Asia in the offices of various Canadian Cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at different points between 2015 and 2021.
Her research interests include the global political economy of China’s rise, China’s impact on global extractive commodity markets—including debates around de-risking, critical minerals and economic security, Canada-China relations, China narratives, and the advent of Indo-Pacific strategies around the world.
She was a Taiwan fellow and visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies (GIEAS), National Chengchi University (NCCU) in the winter of 2025. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
