Janka Oertel is a distinguished policy fellow with the European Power programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). She leads the DARE* initiative, working across all seven ECFR offices in Europe, together with all ECFR programmes, on the topic of Europe’s industrial competitiveness. She previously served for six years as director of the Asia programme at ECFR. She is the author of „Ende der China-Illusion. Wie wir mit Pekings Machtanspruch umgehen müssen,“ published by Piper in Germany in August 2023.

Janka has researched and published widely on topics related to EU-China relations, US-China relations, security in the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese foreign policy, as well as EU-China climate cooperation. She has testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the German Bundestag, and is frequently quoted in leading media outlets such as the Financial Times, the New York Times, The Economist, Die Zeit, El Confidencial, Berlingske, and many more.

From 2019 until late 2025, Janka rebuilt and led the Asia programme at ECFR. Before that, she worked as a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States‘ Berlin office, where she focused on transatlantic China policy including on emerging technologies, Chinese foreign policy, and security in East Asia. Prior to joining the GMF, she served as a programme director at Körber Foundation’s Berlin office, where she was among other things responsible for Young Leaders activities in cooperation with the Munich Security Conference and for the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum in cooperation with the German Foreign Office.

Janka holds a PhD from the University of Jena and a graduate degree from the University of Kiel. Her dissertation, funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), focused on Chinese policies within the United Nations. During her post-graduate studies, she was a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP Berlin), and during her graduate studies she worked at United Nations Headquarters, New York, as a Carlo-Schmid fellow — an internship programme funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Studienstiftung.