René W.H. van der Linden is a senior lecturer and researcher in Economics, Finance and Business Research at the International Business program of The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. He has more than thirty-five years of experience in teaching and research in the fields of economics and finance. His research interests, with practical applications in education, focus on topics in the field of international financial markets, banking and finance, international economics and doing business in Asia and the EU. He has published many papers on the topics mentioned above and, together with Piotr Łasak, published the Pivot The Financial Implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative at Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. Piotr Łasak is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Economics, Finance and Management at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. His research focuses on topics related to international financial markets development, including financial market regulation and supervision, mechanisms of financial and currency crises, digitalization of the financial sector, and shadow banking system development (especially in China).