Xibai Xu is formerly a D.Phil. candidate in Politics at the University of Oxford. He is currently completing his doctoral thesis on how the Chinese state regulates social organizations through the increasing use of market mechanisms and tools, including direct procurement of social services and indirect control over private charitable foundations. He has translated four books in political science into Chinese, most recently Sebastian Veg’s Minjian: The Rise of China’s Grassroots Intellectuals. He is also a regular columnist for Chinese-language media such as Initium Media, The Paper, Caixin, and Jiemian News.