Isaac B. Kardon, Ph.D., (孔适海博士) is a senior fellow for China studies in the Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is concurrently adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and was formerly assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC), where he served in the China Maritime Studies Institute.

Dr. Kardon’s research centers on the People’s Republic of China’s maritime power, with specialization in maritime disputes and the international law of the sea, Chinese global port investments and maritime transportation, China-Pakistan relations, and the People’s Liberation Army’s overseas basing. His writing appears in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Naval War College Review, as well as other scholarly and policy publications. His book, China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order (Yale, 2023) analyzes whether and how China is “making the rules” of regional and global order.​

Current research centers on a new book project telling the story of China’s challenge to a centuries-old Anglo-American dominance over the world’s oceans. The actions of China’s state-owned mega-firm, COSCO, serve as the narrative vessel to chart how China’s maritime power made it the world’s strongest trade and transportation state, if not its predominant navy, and positions it to mount the only credible threat to U.S. “maritime hegemony.” (Provisional title: “How the China Ocean Shipping Company Made China Great Again”)

He earned a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, an M.Phil in modern Chinese studies from Oxford University, and a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College. He was a China & the World post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University, and has held visiting appointments at NYU School of Law, Academia Sinica, and the PRC National Institute for South China Sea Studies. He studied Chinese (Mandarin) at Peking University, Tsinghua University, Hainan University, and National Taiwan Normal University.