Paulo Afonso B. Duarte is an Assistant Professor at Universidade Lusófona do Porto and an Invited Professor at the University of Minho. Post-doc concluded (September 2020) at CICP-University of Minho. Invited speaker for several conferences and seminars worldwide and often cooperates with foreign and Portuguese media, as listed in the distinction section of his Orcid. PhD and a Masters in Political and Social Sciences, awarded by the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Expert in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, on China, World Politics, and Central Asia, where he carried out on-the-ground doctoral research (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) with a scholarship awarded from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Author of Metamorfoses no Poder: rumo à hegemonia do dragão? with a preface and presentation by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, current President of Portugal.