Dr. Gu Hongyan is Assistant Professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Institute of China Studies. She received her PhD in Government and International Relations from the University of Sydney, Australia, and was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability. Dr. Gu’s research interests lie in environmental policy and governance, public participation and sustainable rural development. She has published in both English and Chinese journals such as Forest Policy and Economics, Ecology and Society, and Land Use Policy. Her current research project examines the development of rural landscape conservation policy in Japan and its implications for China.