Jökulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, Iceland
Profile
I am a University Lecturer in World Politics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, with affiliations at the Lau China Institute, King’s College London and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, where I serve as an Associated Senior Research Fellow. I hold a doctorate in International Political Economy from the University of Queensland and have previously worked at several global top 50 universities in Singapore and Australia.
I specialise in global political economy and international relations, with a current focus on the geopolitics of technology and the evolving security architecture in the Indo-Pacific. My ongoing research explores:
The development of central bank digital currencies
The internationalisation of the RMB
The geopolitical implications of the Sino-Russian alignment across various strategic theatres
The nature of China's authoritarian governance
The politics of energy security
The rise of Indo-Pacific strategic minilaterals, notably AUKUS
I have a longstanding interest in China’s political economy, particularly state capitalism and the role of state-owned enterprises. My work also examines how the evolving international financial architecture intersects with global power shifts, particularly through China's efforts to influence monetary governance. From 2023 to 2025, I am co-coordinating a €1.5 million Horizon Europe Twinning project, ‘The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region’ (EUVIP), in partnership with Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic.
My research has been published by academic presses and in international academic journals and edited volumes. My first book, The Chinese State, Oil and Energy Security (2014), received positive reviews in top scholarly journals, with The China Quarterly noting that “In this book, Monique Taylor has provided a thoughtful and refreshing analysis of China’s oil industry that should be read by students, scholars and policy analysts interested in the governance of this country. The line of argument is well-founded and convincing.” My latest book, China's Digital Authoritarianism: A Governance Perspective (2022), is out now. I also serve on the editorial board for the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs.
As the daughter of nomadic professionals, originally from Sydney, I was born in Australia and raised in the Hague, Buenos Aires, Cairo, London and Miri (Borneo) before returning to Australia to complete my secondary education at Seymour College in Adelaide. I then attended the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where I completed a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science (conjoint) with First Class Honours, majoring in Political Science, Industrial Relations, and Geosciences, followed by a Master of Arts with First Class Honours in International Relations. After a break visiting Canada, Japan, and Norway, I received a scholarship to pursue a PhD in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. During my PhD, I conducted fieldwork in China, undertaking multiple research trips to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
During my studies and as part of my career development I participated in several exchanges and international summer schools at Freie Universität Berlin, Charles University in Prague, and the University of Montpellier. Since 2019 I have been living and working in Helsinki, Finland.
In my spare time, I enjoy travelling (having visited more than seventy countries), literature, film, photography, history, and pilates. All the photos displayed on this website, taken on a Fujifilm X100V and iPhone, were captured during my journeys through Europe, Asia, Middle East, North and Central America, and Oceania in recent years.
Links:
University of Helsinki research portal
University of Helsinki staff profile
Lau China Institute, King’s College London profile
Institute for Security and Development Policy profile