Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in international relations at Columbia University with research interests in economic and military coercion, international institutions, and human rights. My regional expertise is rooted in East and Southeast Asia, especially China’s foreign relations.

My dissertation examines the causes and effects of countercriticism coercion by China. I identify countercriticism coercion, or threats and sanctions in response to verbal criticism from abroad, as an emerging and overlooked form of backlash to human rights advocacy. Escalation from purely verbal criticism to threats and sanctions is puzzling: coercion is costly, fails to silence targets, and draws attention to and validates the original critique of repression. China has largely failed to silence the direct targets of sanctions. However, China’s reputation for countercriticism coercion has successfully deterred enough third-party states to water down multilateral criticism of China, especially states with high potential economic gains from China.

I graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University, where I received a B.A. from the School of Public and International Affairs and a certificate in East Asian Studies. I was a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the University of Notre Dame in 2022-23. You can reach me at s.char@columbia.edu.