Weidong Liu is a full professor in Economic Geography and Deputy Director at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. His areas of study are regional development and policies in China, foreign direct investments, spatial impacts of new information and communication technologies, and the changing geography of the automobile industry in China. Weidong is the (co-)author of 12 books (one in English) and 150 peer-reviewed journal papers (35 papers in English). He was the previous chair of the RSA-China Division (2014- 2021) and the head of the Commission on Economic Geography of the Geographical Society of China.