Research Interests

  • Theories of cultures
  • Intercultural communication, with particular emphasis on Germany-China relations
  • Chinese diaspora studies: acculturation, education, and identity
  • AI- and Game-mediated communication

Current Projects

Beyond Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: How the Global Gaming Community Negotiates Cultural Meaning in Black Myth: Wukong

Project period: 2025–2026

Black Myth: Wukong (BMW), developed by Shanghai-based Game Science and released in August 2024, is widely regarded as China’s first AAA video game and a landmark global commercial success. Beyond its technical achievements, BMW has drawn international attention for its deep engagement with Chinese mythology, especially the classic novel Journey to the West. This project asks a question that existing scholarship has largely overlooked: how do players around the world actually interpret and debate the game’s cultural and ideological dimensions?

Much of the current literature on BMW focuses on its role in advancing China’s soft power and domestic creative economy, or on how its developers translate mythological storytelling into interactive gameplay. Our research shifts the focus to the audience itself, analyzing 550,000 words of English-language player reviews from Steam, collected over the three months following the game’s release. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach — lexical filtering, controversy mapping, grounded thematic coding, and discourse analysis — We trace how players negotiate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) norms and cultural authenticity in their own words.

The analysis surfaces four distinct interpretive positions among players: Critical Progressives, who see the game as falling short of DEI standards; Inclusive Defenders, who argue it already reflects those values through its development team and narrative themes; Cultural Relativists, who reject Western frameworks as the dominant lens for a story rooted in Chinese tradition; and Anti-Woke Resisters, who frame the game as a stand against the politicization of game development. A recurring thread across these positions is a transnational coalition of players pushing back not so much against each other, but against media outlets and consulting firms they see as ideological gatekeepers.

Ultimately, this project treats Black Myth: Wukong as both a mirror and a medium — a case study in how global audiences make meaning across cultural lines, and how those debates reshape the power dynamics between developers, media institutions, and players in the global gaming industry.

The Making of “China Competence” in Germany’s Policy Transformation

Project period: 2024–2025

Over the past decade, the German federal government has established the “China Competence” initiative both as a funding policy instrument and as a central pillar of its China strategy. Drawing on a retrospective policy analysis covering 2015–2024, this project examines the discursive and practice-based construction and transformation of “China Competence” within funding governance — across political decision-makers, funding recipients, and funded activities. The findings reveal a two-phase development trajectory: an initially cooperation-oriented phase centered on cultural understanding and trust building, followed by a strategic reorientation toward de-risking, security governance, and policy-relevant expertise.

Related Publications

View full publication list on:   ResearchGate ↗   Google Scholar ↗

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