Oyuna Baldakova is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies at the Free University of Berlin and a fellow of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). Her research focus is China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its potential consequences for the sustainable economic development of Central Asia. Oyuna comes from Buryatia (Russian Siberia) and have been living in Germany for the past seven years. She has completed her Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics (English and Chinese) at Buryat State University (Russia) and holds MA in Modern East Asian Studies from Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) for which she was awarded a scholarship from the DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service. After that, she worked in the field of international development interning at UNESCO Bangkok, managing an EU-funded project in Central Asia, and running communications as vice-chair of the International Organization of Folk Art (IOV) World Youth Committee for a two-year term. She speaks fluent English, Chinese, German and Russian.