Diogo Borges is a PhD Researcher in International Studies at Iscte-Instituto Universitario de Lisboa with affiliation to the Center for International Studies at Iscte and the Macao Scientific and Cultural Center of Lisbon.

His main academic research has been on Chinese interactions with Southeast Asia, with a focus on the impacts of Belt and Road Initiative, historical continuities of Chinese foreign pollicy in Southeast Asia, Chinese migrations to the region and political legitimacy in ASEAN.

Diogo Borges formulated his master's thesis with the topic “The Impacts of the Belt and Road Initiative in ASEAN between 2013 and 2021 and its implications for Chinese Regional Hegemony” and has presented varied papers regarding China's Belt and Road in ASEAN, the role of local Chinese ethnic groups and the bamboo network in several international conferences.

He is currently working under funding from the FCT-CCCM (Macao Scientific and Cultural Center) partnership on the topic “China, the Bamboo Network and the Belt and Road Initiative: the cases of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore ” for his doctoral thesis, with the aim of understanding how Chinese ethnic groups might have influenced the implementation of BRI projects in these states and their degree of contribution to the expansion of Chinese soft power.