Fengming Lu

About Me

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Between 2018 and 2020, I was a postdoctoral fellow of the Peking-Princeton Postdoctoral Program (PPPP).

My research interests include a wide array of topics in comparative politics and Chinese politics, particularly the political economy of China, elite politics, political selection, media politics, and local governments.

As a close observer of the Chinese automotive industry for 30 years, I am working on a book project on political economy of the booming electric vehicle (EV) industry in China, focusing on roles of central industrial policies, local governments’ developmental strategies, and the global capital market.

A veteran podcast listener since the mid-2000s (when folks used iPods to listen to podcasts), I am also a regular contributor to podcasts, including the business, history, and culture podcast 中间地带 The Middle Ground (Apple Podcast, 小宇宙) and the automotive podcast 孤岛车谈 Isle of Autos (Apple Podcast, 小宇宙, Spotify).

I received my Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University in 2018. Prior to my stay at Duke, I received B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Please feel free to reach me at fengming.lu@anu.edu.au.

Publication

Political Economy

Lu, Fengming, and Xiao Ma. 2026. “The Rise of China’s Electric Vehicle Industry: Strategic Alliances Between Local Governments and Private Capital.” The China Journal 96. 

Elite Politics

Lu, Fengming. “Neo-Maoist Sticks and Nationalist Carrots Maintaining Party Cohesion in the New Era.” In Benjamin Hillman and Fengyuan Ji eds. The Communist Party of China Understanding the Durability of the World's Most Powerful Political Organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lu, Fengming, and Xiao Ma. 2019. “Is Any Publicity Good Publicity? Media Coverage, Party Institutions, and Authoritarian Power-Sharing.” Political Communication 36(1): 64-82. [Ungated version with appendix]

Local Governments in China

Ding, Yanqing, Fengming Lu, and Xiaoyang Ye. 2020. “Intergovernmental Transfer under Heterogeneous Accountability: The Effects of the 2006 Chinese Education Finance Reform.” Economics of Education Review 77: 101985. [Ungated version with appendix]

• Winner of the 2017 Young Scholar Best Paper Award, awarded by the Committee of Education Finance, the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy (the think tank of the Chinese Ministry of Education).

Research Projects