Dr. Bill Hayton is the author of The Invention of China (Yale, 2020) and three other books on Asia: Vietnam: rising dragon (Yale 2010 & 2020), The South China Sea: the struggle for power in Asia (Yale, 2014) and A Brief History of Vietnam (Tuttle, 2022). He is the editor of the academic journal Asian Affairs and was appointed an Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House in 2015. Bill worked as a BBC journalist for 22 years, including a year as the BBC’s reporter in Vietnam in 2006-7 and another year seconded to the public broadcaster in Myanmar in 2013-14. In 2019 he received his PhD from the University of Cambridge for work on the history and development of the South China Sea disputes. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is currently working on a new book on East Asian history.