Ms. Shikha Aggarwal

With over a decade of experience in China studies, Ms. Shikha Aggarwal has been associated with leading think tanks in India and Taipei. Her research focuses on Chinese domestic politics, CCP elite politics, Party institutions, and internal security bureaucracy. She was recently selected as one of the 12 members of the Quad China Task Force, conceptualised by ORF-America and ASPI-DC. In 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Taiwan Fellowship by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan, under which she conducted an in-depth study on the activities of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in South Asia. She is also a recipient of the Huayu Scholarship, through which she pursued advanced-level Mandarin at the National Taiwan Normal University. From 2020 to 2023, she served as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University (NCCU), where her research focused on the influence of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (Zhengfa) within elite Chinese politics and CCP cadre recruitment patterns post the 19th Party Congress. In 2019, she was selected for a study visit to China organised by the Guangxi School of Public Administration and represented India at the National Development Course conducted by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defence. Her writings have been published in several academic journals, and she contributes regularly to national and international publications such as The Indian Express, The Hindu, and Taipei Times. She has actively participated in various Track II dialogues and has presented her research at several national and international forums.