I’m advancing polytunity both as a counter-narrative and constructive alternative to the buzzword polycrisis. Instead of reacting to today’s convergence of crises and disruptions with fear, polytunity reframes this moment as a generational opportunity for deep transformation of global institutions and thought.

Polytunity is not just a new word. It advances reflexivity and systems change at a time when the world is hurtling toward multipolarity and hyper-complexity. A rupture of such tectonic scale requires that we diversify the curation of voices, reprogram the way we think, and truly broaden global inclusion.

To seize the Polytunity, I offer my paradigm as an intellectual foundation for a disrupted, multipolar world: AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy. Adaptive = replace machine-thinking with systems-thinking. Inclusive = Value diverse development pathways. Moral = Recognize how power and positionality shapes ideas.

Polytunity is not vague optimism, but grounded in a rigorous empirical foundation. Though formally named in 2024, I’ve practiced AIM throughout my scholarship, teaching, and public engagement in the past decades, and I continue to expand this paradigm through a variety of new projects. In short, my intellectual evolution follows a genealogical sequence, like a seed growing into a sprout, then a tree, and eventually into a grove.

Polytunity sets the stage for AIM, asking: Why do we urgently need a new paradigm now?

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AIM is that paradigm - offering new ways of thinking for a disrupted, multipolar world.

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Adaptive + Inclusive + Moral form the pillars of AIM, grounding both its analytic and normative foundations.

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My past work, including my books How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016) and China’s Gilded Age (2020), demonstrates AIM in action, showing how its principles translate into fresh research questions, methods, data collection, findings, and insights.

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Building on that demonstration, The Polytunity Project, a faculty lab I founded and direct at JHU, facilitates a global movement: How can changemakers seize the polytunity and apply AIM across regions and sectors, in creative and unexpected ways?

In the following pages, you’re invited to enter the portal of Polytunity and explore possibilities amid crises and disruptions.