Sam Olsen is a UK-based geopolitical strategist, an expert on Chinese-Western relations and on the measurement and analysis of the changing world order. As the Head of the Adarga Research Institute, he is also a leading specialist in the use of artificial intelligence in geopolitical analysis.

 

He is known for concepts such as the 52nd Meridian Challenge (keeping Europe-Asia connecticity open for Western Alignment traffic), and his work on the vulnerability of UK military partnerships around the world to Chinese influence. He is also

the author of the influential What China Wants newsletter.

 

Sam has a particular expertise on China and its relationship with the rest of the world. He first visited the People’s Republic in 1996 and later lived and worked in Hong Kong and Singapore for over a decade.

 

In Asia he was the Global Head of Intellectual Property Protection for the risk firm Kroll, and an award-winning co-founder of the tech company Lamplight Analytics, which used Chinese and Western social media to create commercial and national security insights. He then co-founded the think tank The Evenstar Institute, which specialized in quantifying international influence before it was merged into Adarga in 2023.

 

Sam regularly presents his research at closed- and open-door events, and provides geopolitical insights to senior leaders in the fields of government, national security, finance, and commerce.

 

His main areas of research concern Chinese vs US international influence, macro supply chain risk, Great Power politics in Southeast Asia and Europe, research security, emerging technology tracking, and Space. Sam has long taken a strong interest in Taiwan and its relationship with both China and the US, and was one of the first people in the UK to write about the possibility of a Chinese blockade.

 

Sam has deep political experience relating to China-Western relations. In the UK he has given frequent briefings on his research regarding China to members of the House of Lords and House of Commons, as well as to numerous government departments. He has also given evidence on the role of AI and defence to both a Lords Select Committee and to a number of Treasury and Ministry of Defence roundtables. Sam was a contributor to the China Lexicon compiled by the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China (PIAC). In the US he served as a Legislative Fellow on Chinese trade policy in the United States Senate under Senator Arlen Specter. He is UK security cleared.

 

Aside from What China Wants, his writing on Chinese-Western relations has been extensively published, including in The Spectator, The Hill, and The South China Morning Post. He has been a guest discussing politics and geopolitics on numerous podcasts and media outlets in the UK and Asia.

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Sam is a graduate of Oxford University, and has travelled to more than 75 countries and territories. 

 

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