Deutsch Intern
Sinology in Würzburg

Dr. Hannes Gohli

Chair of China Business and Economics, Research Assistant

Hannes Gohli is a research assistant at the Chair of China Business and Economics. His research is funded by the DFG.

Hannes Gohli’s research investigates horizontal and vertical power dynamics in two arenas critical to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) future development: the country’s energy transition and data governance. The power over resource allocation to steer societal behavior, the structure of state bureaucracy as well as contestation/resistance at the local level are common themes across both arenas. While his doctoral thesis, funded by the German Research Foundation, examined the impact of political intervention in China's electricity sector through the lens of steering theory, his current project looks at how the introduction of ‘intellectual technologies’ has impacted state administration, productivity growth and public service provision in digital villages. By combining theories on the developmental state and various ‘data-driven capitalisms’ (e.g. data, information, digital, cloud and platform capitalism), the latter project seeks to identify structures, roles and attributes characteristic of a novel theoretical construct: the Chinese digital developmental state. Gohli’s post-doctoral research has received institutional support from Princeton University’s Institute for International and Regional Studies, where he successfully completed a one-year post-doctoral position at the Paul and Marcia Wythes Centre on Contemporary China. 

Gohli’s methodological expertise lies in conducting interviews with stakeholders in the PRC, including with state officials, managers at state-owned enterprises, private entrepreneurs and academics. In his doctoral thesis, interviews were complemented by document analysis to shed light on how steering and counter-steering strategies are developed to influence policy design and implementation in China’s smart electricity grid. Similarly, interviews and document analysis are deployed to reveal struggles for instrumentarian power between the Chinese state and the country’s leading tech companies in his current ‘Habilitationsprojekt' on the Chinese ‘digital developmental state’.

Besides his research interests, Gohli also runs the China Competence Centre of the University of Würzburg, where he supports scholars in establishing research collaborations and mobility programs with Chinese partners. In this capacity, he is also heavily involved in the German debate on finding a balance between research security and continued cooperation with Chinese higher education institutions. Gohli is also a lecturer at the Chair of China Business and Economics on a wide range of topics connected to contemporary China’s economics, politics and society. For this capacity, Gohli has attained the highest didactic university qualification possible in Bavaria (the Profilehre Vertiefungsstufe). Gohli also holds the highest leadership certificate available at the University of Würzburg. Gohli is also a proud member of the network women@wiwi, as well as a the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA) and the Arbeitskreis Sozialwissenschaftlicher Chinaforschung (ASC). 

Prior to his doctoral research, Gohli completed a Bachelor of Arts at the Syddansk University in Sønderborg Denmark and holds a Master of Science from the University of Wur̈zburg, both in thefields of China Business and Economics. His interest in the PRC’s economy, politics and society stems from two years in Brazil and Colombia, where he witnessed Chinese investment and increasing political influence. A one-year stay at the Beijing Foreign Studies University cemented Gohli’s conviction that developing China competence will be critical to global development in the 21st century.

Publications

  • Aboubakr, Passant and Gohli, Hannes (2026). “The Paris Climate Agreement’s Effects on Chinese Environmental Policy Design”. Chinese Journal of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X251410671
  • Gohli, Hannes (2025). “Empörung als Routine: Universitätsleben vor und nach dem Amtseintritt von Donald Trump”. Forschung und Lehre (November 2025), pp. 42 - 44.
  • Gohli, Hannes (2024): 'Steering the Belt and Road’s Energy Mix: A Steering Theory Perspective on Chinese Energy Investments in Pakistan and Indonesia'. China Perspectives, 137 | 2024, 69-79.
  • Gohli, Hannes (2023). “Walking a Tightrope: Balancing Research Security Concerns with a Need for China Competence”. 9Dashline. Available: https://www.9dashline.com/article/walking-a-tightrope-balancing-research-security-concerns-with-needed-china-competence
  • Gohli, Hannes (2022): Steering Political Currents: Policy Design and Implementation in China’s Smart Grid Industry. Baden-Baden: Nomos. doi: doi.org/10.5771/9783748938798
  • Gohli, Hannes. (2022): 'High-voltage steering: China's energy market reforms, industrial policy tools and the 2021 electricity crisis'. Energy Research & Social Science 93: 102851. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102851
  • Fischer, Doris/ Habich-Sobiegalla, Sabrina/ Gohli, Hannes (2021): 'Balancing Stability and Development: Industrial Policies under Xi Jinping'. Issues & Studies 57(4): 2150016. doi: 10.1142/S1013251121500168
  • Gohli, Hannes / Fischer, Doris (2019): 'Intentional Ambiguity in Chinese Policymaking: The Case of the Smart Grid Industry', in ASIEN Nr. 152/153 (2019). https://doi.org/10.11588/asien.2019.152/153.14166.

Public Speaking Engagements

2021

  • DGA Nachwuchsgruppe. ‘Alternating Policies, Directing Actors: A Study of Political Steering and Countersteering in the People’s Republic of China’s Smart Grid Industry’. Online. May 2021
  • China Akademie. ‘Green New Deal Made in China?’ Online. Oktober 2021
  • Humpis Montagsforum Ravensburg. ‘Chinas Industriepolitik Heute’. November 2021
  • Ukraine-Germany Alumni Network. ‘Industrial Policy in China’s Energy Transition’. Online. December 2021

2022

  • China KOBE Stipendiatenförderung. ‘Industrial Policy in China’s Energy Transition. Berlin. April 2022
  • Hauptschule Lauterach (A). ’Schule und Generation Z in China’. Lauterach, Mai 2022
  • Non-Food Conference. ‘Made in China 2025: Die Neuausrichtung einer Großmacht’. Mai 2022
  • China Schulakademie. ‘Die Politik der Energiewende in China’. Heidelberg. Juni 2022

2023

  • ENTRANCE Auftaktveranstaltung. ‘Industriepolitik als Werkzeug der Politischen Steuerung’. Aachen. März 2023
  • Sustainability Conference. ’Steering the Belt and Road’s Energy Mix: A Steering Theory Perspective on Chinese Energy Investments in Pakistan and Indonesia’. Göttingen. Juni 2023
  • Panel Discussant. ‘German Research Collaboration with China’. Ulm. July 2023
  • ASC Conference. ’The Digital Developmental State. Tübingen. Oktober 2023
  • Seniorenuniversität. ‘Chinas Energiewende’. Bad Kissingen. November - Dezember 2023. 

2024

  • Seniorenuniversität. ‘Chinas Energiewende’. Februar 2024
  • CHERN Workshop. ’The Chinese Social Credit System’. Paris. March 2024
  • Realschule Erlenbach. 'Schule und Generation Z in China’. Erlenbach. April 2024
  • Christian Alexander Universität Kiel. ‘Moderation für Chinaforum’. Kiel. Juni 2024
  • Passauer Politiktage. ‘Panelist Feministische Außenpolitik’. Passau. Juni 2024

2025

  • OAV German Asia-Pacific Business Association. ‘Alternating Policies, Directing Actors: A Study of Steering and Counter-Steering in the People’s Republic of China’s Smart Grid Industry’. Online. January 2025
  • AAS Conference. ‘Deliberate Abstention or Asleep at the Wheel? A Steering Theory Perspective on Chinese E-Commerce Platform Regulation’. Colombus, USA. March 2025
  • ASC Conference. ‘Paper Discussant: Steering Theory in Fintech’. Berlin. November 2025

Conference participation with paper presentation

  • International Sustainable Development Research Society. Nanjing, China / June 2019
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Asienkunde. Bremen, Germany / November 2019

Teaching

Master:

  • Business and Finance (2021/22, 2022/23)
  • China’s National Innovation System (2022/23, 2023/24)
  • Chinese Economic Discourse Analyses (2022/23)
  • Challenges of Sustainable Development (2021/22/23/24)
  • Chinese Firms in Global Markets (2021)
  • China Topics (2017/18)
  • Hot Issues (2023/24)
  • Consumerism and Marketing (2023/24; 2025/26)
  • Case Study (2023/24; 2025/26)
  • Methodological Questions (2023/24)

Bachelor:

  • Management in China (2022)
  • Challenges of China’s Economic Rise (2021/22/23/24)