Rongbin Han

Rongbin Han serves as Associate Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia and holds a Spring 2025 visiting appointment as Associate Professor in Residence at the University of Hawaii's Department of Asian Studies. His academic foundation includes a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (2012).

His educational credentials feature:

• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2012

Dr. Han's scholarly work critically examines digital media's political dimensions in authoritarian contexts, with concentrated focus on China's cyber governance strategies and online expression dynamics. His research program integrates internet censorship mechanisms, state-society interactions in digital spaces, and the geopolitical ramifications of cyber nationalism. As author of Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience (Columbia University Press, 2018) and co-author of Directed Digital Dissidence in Autocracies: How China Wins Online (Oxford University Press, 2023), he establishes foundational frameworks for understanding how digital technologies simultaneously challenge and reinforce authoritarian systems. His current investigations extend into U.S.-China strategic competition within digital domains and China's evolving foreign policy apparatus.

During Spring 2025, he instructs graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Hawaii through two specialized courses: Digital Media and Asian Politics (ASAN 491Z) examining internet governance and digital innovation across Asia, and Chinese Foreign Policy (ASAN 688) analyzing Beijing's diplomatic strategies amid Taiwan tensions and great-power rivalry.