Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a research professor at the Busan University of Foreign Studies. His research focuses on China-Middle East-Indonesia relations. He graduated from the Qatar University with a BA in international affairs and from the University of Manchester with a MA in international politics. He completed his Ph.D thesis on the Belt and Road Initiatives in the Gulf at Manchester.
His publications include a chapter entitled “Qatar and the ASEAN Community” in ASEAN Looks West: ASEAN and the Gulf Region (2017), books in Indonesian on China’s foreign policy in the Syrian conflict (2021) and Indonesia-GCC relations (2021), as well as monographs entitled, “Developments in Indonesian-Saudi Relations Under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo” (KFCRIS, 2022) and “From Hormuz to Malacca: Straits of Cooperation between the GCC and Indonesia” (MEI-NUS, 2022). His opinions have also been published in The Diplomat, Asia Sentinel, and The Conversation.