Alexander Lukin is Academic Head of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Department of International Relations at National Research University Higher School of Economics, Chief Researcher at the Institute of International Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in Moscow, Russia, and Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University in China.

He co-authored Three Journeys through China with Andrei Dikarev (Moscow, 1989), The Political Culture of the Russian Democrats (Oxford University Press, 2000), The Bear Watches the Dragon: Russia' s Perceptions of China and the Evolution of Russian-Chinese Relations since the Eighteenth Century (M.E.Sharpe, 2003), and so on. In 2009, he was awarded a medal by Chinese President Hu Jintao for his outstanding contribution to the development of Sino-Russian relations, and in 2012 and 2022, medals on the occasions of the 10th and 20th Anniversaries of Shanghai Cooperation Organization for his contribution in the formation and development of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).