Category: High Profile Events

What opportunities and challenges lie ahead for the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region? This two-panel event brings together experts from the United States and Asia to discuss the future of U.S. policy and the policies of key regional players, including Korea, Japan, China, and their neighbors. As we enter a new year marked by political transitions in many capitals, the speakers will assess the foreign policy challenges and domestic political dynamics that will shape U.S. engagement and broader developments across the Indo-Pacific. 

This GWIKS Korea Policy Forum is organized in partnership with GW’s Sigur Center for Asian Studies, East Asia National Resources Center, Taiwan Education and Research Program, Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, and Ritsumeikan University’s Center for East Asian Peace and Cooperation Studies.

Agenda:

Panel 1: Grand Strategy (1:00 -2:30 PM)

• Youngjoo Jang, Visiting Research Fellow, Center for East Asian Peace and Cooperation Studies, Ritsumeikan University
• Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs, The George Washington University
• Drew Arveseth, Director, Korean Peninsula and Mongolia, United States National Security Council (NSC)
• Bumsoo Kim, Director, Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University

Break and Networking (2:30–3:00)

Panel 2: Emerging Challenges (3:00-4:30 PM)

• Inwook Kim, Associate Professor of International Affairs, Sungkyunkwan University
• Ilaria Mazzocco, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, Center for Strategic & International Studies
• Prashanth Parameswaran, Global Fellow, The Wilson Center; CEO and Founder, ASEAN Wonk Global; Senior Columnist, The Diplomat
• Ann Kowalewski, Senior Non-Resident Fellow, The Global Taiwan Institute
• Tashi Rabgey, Research Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Panel One

Professor Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University (2011-Present ). He also served as Director of the School’s main undergraduate program involving over 2,000 students from 2013-2019. He has served as Special Adviser to the Dean on Strategic Outreach (2021-present). His earlier full-time position was Visiting Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University (2001-2011).

A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, Sutter has published 23 books (four with multiple editions), over 300 articles and several hundred government reports dealing with contemporary East Asian and Pacific countries and their relations with the United States. His most recent books are Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy of an Emerging Global Force, Fifth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), US-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Present, Fourth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield 2022), and Congress and China Policy: Past Episodic, Recent Enduring Influence (Lexington Books, 2024)

Sutter’s government career (1968-2001) saw service as senior specialist and director of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service, the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and the Pacific at the US Government’s National Intelligence Council, the China division director at the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Drew Arveseth is the Director for the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC). During his tenure on the NSC staff, he has engaged on U.S. policy issues ranging from extended deterrence, risk reduction, denuclearization, and Indo-Pacific regional security dynamics to civil-nuclear cooperation, regional development initiatives, economic security, transnational threats, and human rights. Drew played an integral role in preparations for the U.S.-ROK-Japan Camp David Trilateral as well as the State Visit of ROK President Yoon to the United States in 2023, which culminated in the release of the Washington Declaration. Prior to arriving at the NSC, he served as a U.S. Government analyst covering economic, political, and security developments on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader East Asia Pacific region. Before his national security career, Drew served with the Saejowi Initiative, an organization providing medical support and social services to DPRK defectors in the ROK. He received a Master’s in International Affairs from the George Washington University, where he focused on security in East Asia. He is a graduate of Utah State University, where he studied economics and international business.

Professor Bumsoo Kim received his B.A. and M.A. from the Department of International Relations at Seoul National University in 1992 and 1997 respectively, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2006. Since then, he has worked as a research professor in the BK Program of the Department of Political Science at Seoul National University and as a lecturer at Seoul National University, and since 2010, has been a professor in the College of Liberal Studies (CLS) at Seoul National University. In the College of Liberal Studies, he served as an associate dean twice (2012-2014 and 2017-2019), and since February 2023, has been serving as a Dean. At the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (IPUS), he served as a chief of External Relations Division, head of the Center for Unification Studies, and deputy director from 2016 to 2023, and since March 2023 has been serving as a director. He has also served as a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Tokyo and a visiting professor at the University of Washington, U.S.A. He has served as a vice president of the Korean Political Science Association, a research board member of the Korean Association of International Studies, a president of the Governance Research Association, and a consultant for university restructuring at the Ministry of Education. As of March 2023, he is a member of the Academic Council of Seoul National University and an advisory board member of the Overseas Koreans Foundation.

His main research interests include political theory such as theory of justice and freedom, human rights theory, peace theory, nationalism, and multiculturalism. He has published many books in Korean, including What Is Fairness in Korean Society: 7 Theories of Justice to Protect a Fair Me (Akanet, 2022); What Is Peace Studies: Genealogy and Issues (Seoul National University Press, 2022); Korea-Japan Relations: Beyond Conflict to Reconciliation (Parkmun Press, 2021). He has also published many articles in peer-reviewed journals, which include “Bringing Class Back In: The Changing Basis of Inequality and the Korean Minority in Japan,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(5), 2008, pp. 871-898; “Are North Korean Compatriots ‘Korean’? The Trifurcation of Ethnic Nationalism in South Korea during the Syngman Rhee Era (1948-1960),” Journal of Korean Studies, 24(1), 2019, pp. 149~171; “Are the Freedom of States and International Public Laws Compatible? Kant’s Theory of Peace and the Freedom of States” Korean Journal of International Relations, 59(3), 2019, pp. 7-54. In 2009, he received the Best Article Award of the Korean Political Science Association for his article “Who Is Japanese? the Boundaries of the ‘Japanese’ in Post-War Japan,” published in Journal of the Korean Political Science Association, 43(1), pp. 177-202.

 Panel Two

Professor Inwook Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Sungkyunkwan University. His main research interests include history and geopolitics of oil, politics of alliances, and the Korean Peninsula. His works have either appeared or are forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, Journal of Global Security Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, The Pacific Review, Foreign Affairs, and others.

Professor Kim holds a PhD in Political Science from the George Washington University where he was also a research affiliate at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies (ISCS). He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) from University of Oxford and received MSc in Politics of the World Economy from London School of Economics . He is also a former recipient of Fulbright Scholarship, and previously taught at Korea Military Academy, the University of Hong Kong, and Singapore Management University.

Ilaria Mazzocco is deputy director and senior fellow with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She has over a decade of experience researching industrial policy, Chinese climate policy, and the intersection between the energy transition and economic and national security. Prior to joining CSIS, she led research on Chinese climate and energy policy for Macropolo, the Paulson Institute’s think tank. She holds a PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where her dissertation investigated Chinese industrial policy by focusing on electric vehicle promotion efforts and the role of local governments. She also holds master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins SAIS and Central European University, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Bard College. She speaks Chinese and Italian.

Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran is a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, where he produces analysis on Southeast Asian political and security issues, Asian defense affairs, and U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. He is also the CEO and Founder of ASEAN Wonk Global, a research hub that produces the weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief newsletter; Senior Columnist at The Diplomat, one of Asia’s leading current affairs publications; and an Advisor at BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm focused on the Indo-Pacific region. His new book, “Elusive Balances: Shaping U.S.-Southeast Asia Strategy,” published in 2022, develops and applies an original “balance of commitment” approach to examining U.S. commitment in Southeast Asia over the past half century, along with policy recommendations for future administrations. 

A political scientist by training, Dr. Parameswaran is a recognized expert on Asian affairs and U.S. foreign policy in the region, with a focus on Southeast Asia and politics and security issues. He has conducted grant-based field research across the region, consulted for companies and governments, and taught courses affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State. His policy insights, research and commentary have been published widely in the United States and across the region in leading publications and journals including CNN, The Washington Post, The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, Asia Policy and Contemporary Southeast Asia.

Dr. Parameswaran has held roles across think tanks, government, media and business in the United States and in the region, including most recently the Foreign Service Institute and The Diplomat, where he served as senior editor. In those capacities, he advanced research and analysis on key Asian political and security trends using rigorous research methodologies and extensive in-country networks, with an emphasis on Southeast Asia.

Dr. Parameswaran holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University focused on international security, international business and U.S. foreign policy, and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia where he studied foreign affairs and peace and conflict studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Ann E. Kowalewski has a decade of experience in think tank, government, and private sector on Indo-Pacific policy. Annie led the Indo-Pacific portfolio as a senior professional staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she managed legislation and oversight regarding strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), US policy towards Taiwan, alliance management, and the US diplomatic and security posture in the region. She also served as an Indo-Pacific senior policy analyst on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for three years.

Prior to serving on the Hill, Ms. Kowalewski spent four years researching Indo-Pacific issues at various think tanks. As a research associate with the American Enterprise Institute, she researched, wrote, and presented on topics to include US Indo-Pacific strategy, PRC military modernization programs, and recommendations for strengthening US defense alliances in the Indo-Pacific. She was also a China research assistant for Georgetown’s Center for Security Studies and the United States Institute of Peace.

Before her career in DC, Ms. Kowalewski served in the Scottish Parliament for two years as a parliamentary assistant working on EU case law and nuclear non-proliferation issues. She received her MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University and her LLB (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh, School of Law. She is fluent in Mandarin.

Professor Tashi Rabgey is Research Professor of International Affairs at the Elliott School where she specializes in statehood, authoritarianism and territorial politics, with a focus on multilevel governance and the politics of scale in the People’s Republic of China. She also works on constitutional and international legal issues relating to special status arrangements of asymmetric states and autonomous regions in comparative global contexts. Her primary regional focus is Tibet and Greater China, with a specialization in the Sino-Tibetan dispute. She is completing a long-term study of Chinese statehood, elite and institutional politics and Tibet’s rule and governance during China’s global rise.

At the Elliott School, she directs the Research Initiative on Multination States (RIMS) which convenes a Track II dialogue process with policy researchers in Beijing on state asymmetry and territorial autonomy. She is also founding director of the Tibet Governance Lab, a research platform and incubator for policy research on Tibet that provides a dynamic hub for the exchange of research, practice-driven insight and approaches to governance in contemporary Tibet.

Before joining the Elliott School, Professor Rabgey was codirector of the University of Virginia Tibet Center where she was a lecturer in contemporary Tibetan studies. She is also cofounder of Machik, a global nonprofit that has delivered strategies for Tibetan-language education, community empowerment and civic engagement in Tibet for over twenty years. She has been a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on US-China Relations, a visiting scholar at Sichuan University and visiting professor at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr in Kurdistan (Iraq). She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, as well as law degrees from Oxford and Cambridge where she was a Rhodes scholar.

 Moderaters

Richard J. Haddock is the Assistant Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University, where he leads the Center’s robust Taiwan affairs programming, outreach, and curriculum development. He is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where his research focuses on U.S.-Taiwan education diplomacy and exchange. Previously, he has held positions at the GW East Asia National Resource Center, the National Democratic Institute’s Asia team, the American Institute in Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Section, and the U.S. Department of State.

Mr. Haddock is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University, focusing on digital democracy and e-governance development in the Asia-Pacific. He holds an MA in Asian Studies from the Elliott School, with a concentration on domestic politics and foreign policy of East Asia. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Political Science and minors in Asian Studies and Diplomacy.

Professor Celeste Arrington specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. Her research interests include law and social change, governance, civil society, social movements, policy-making processes, lawyers, the media and politics, and qualitative methods. She is also interested in the international relations and security of Northeast Asia and transnational activism.

Her first book was Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Government Accountability in Japan and South Korea (Cornell, 2016). She has published articles in Comparative Political Studies, Law & Society Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Law & Policy, Asian Survey, and elsewhere. With Patricia Goedde, she co-edited Rights Claiming in South Korea (Cambridge, 2021). Her current book project analyzes the legalistic turn in Korean and Japanese governance through paired case studies related to tobacco control and disability rights.

Her research has received support from numerous fellowships and programs. She is a core faculty of the GW Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS) and President of the Association for Korean Political Studies. GW’s Office of the Vice President for Research awarded her the 2021 Early Career Research Scholar Award.

The security and economic environment surrounding Okinawa is becoming more uncertain and worrisome. In response, the Okinawa Prefectural Government recently launched its Subnational Diplomacy initiative to promote cooperation and prevent conflict in East Asia. Governor Denny Tamaki of Okinawa will discuss the basic thinking behind this Subnational Diplomacy, some of the concrete steps taken thus far, and the prospects for the future. Then a panel of prominent experts on Japan, international relations, and security policy will comment on Governor Tamaki’s remarks and assess the opportunities and constraints that Okinawa faces to develop and exert its influence in shaping the regional environment.

Speakers

Sheila A. Smith is John E. Merow senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, she is the author of Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (released in Japanese as 日中 親愛なる宿敵: 変容する日本政治と対中政策), and Japan’s New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance. She is also the author of the CFR interactive guide Constitutional Change in Japan. Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound and a frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia.

Professor Mochizuki holds the Japan-U.S. Relations Chair in Memory of Gaston Sigur at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. Dr. Mochizuki was director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies from 2001 to 2005. He co-directs the “Memory and Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific” research and policy project of the Sigur Center. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was also Co-Director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy at RAND and has taught at the University of Southern California and Yale University.

Critical questions about China’s future have swirled around the CCP’s 20th Party Congress: What will Xi Jinping’s third term mean for Chinese domestic politics? What are China’s intentions for Taiwan? How will the party manage slowing economic growth along with mounting demographic and environmental problems? The Sigur Center for Asian Studies will host a half-day congress where leading experts from GW’s distinguished China faculty and top scholars from other institutions seek to address these questions. The event will be in person only and open to the general public. Brief presentations will be followed by extended opportunities for Q&A with the audience.

Registration is free and open to the public. This event is IN-PERSON only. 

This event will be recorded and will be available on the Sigur Center YouTube channel after the event.

Speakers

Panel 1: Domestic Politics

Bruce Dickson

Professor Dickson received his B.A. in political science and English literature, his M.A. in Chinese Studies, and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty of The George Washington University and the Elliott School in 1993. 

Professor Dickson’s research and teaching focus on political dynamics in China, especially the adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party and the regime it governs. In addition to courses on China, he also teaches on comparative politics and authoritarianism.

His current research examines the political consequences of economic reform in China, the Chinese Communist Party’s evolving strategy for survival, and the changing relationship between state and society. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the US Institute of Peace, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Iza Ding

Professor Iza Ding is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh, with a courtesy appointment in Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. In 2019-2020, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Political Science and a Visiting Associate at the International Institute at the University of Michigan.

Professor Ding’s research explores the paradoxes and pushbacks attending economic, political, and cultural modernization, such as creative resistance against institutional rigidities, lingering moral traditions against legal development, enduring historical memories against rapid socioeconomic transformations, and humans’ simultaneous degradation of nature and attachment to nature. Her book The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China has been recently released by Cornell University Press.

Professor Ding received her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, and her B.A. in Political Science and Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Michigan.

Jeffrey Ding

Professor Jeffrey Ding is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, sponsored by Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Professor Ding’s research agenda centers on technological change and international politics. His dissertation investigates how past technological revolutions influenced the rise and fall of great powers, with implications for U.S.-China competition in emerging technologies like AI. Other research projects tackle how states should identify strategic technologies, assessments of national scientific and technological capabilities, and interstate cooperation on nuclear safety and security technologies. His work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, The Washington Post, and other outlets.

Professor Ding received his Ph.D. in 2021 from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Previously, Profesor Ding worked as a researcher for Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and Oxford’s Centre for the Governance of AI at the University of Oxford. Growing up in Iowa City, he became a lifelong Hawkeye fan and attended the University of Iowa for his undergraduate studies.

Panel 2: International Relations

David Shambaugh

David Shambaugh is an internationally recognized authority and award-winning author on contemporary China and the international relations of Asia. He is the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs, and the founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He previously served in the Department of State and on the National Security Council staff during the Carter administration (1977-1979). From 1996-2016 he was also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution. Professor Shambaugh was previously Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader in Chinese Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), 1987-1996, where he also served as Editor of The China Quarterly. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Advisory Board of the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), East-West Center Fellowship Board, is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and member of its Board of Studies, is a participant in the Aspen Strategy Group, and other public policy and scholarly organizations. An active public intellectual and frequent commentator in the international media, he also serves on numerous editorial boards, and has been a consultant to governments, research institutions, foundations, universities, corporations, banks, and investment funds.

He has been selected for numerous awards and grants, including as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Scholar by the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and a Senior Fulbright Scholar (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). He has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, German Marshall Fund, Hinrich Foundation, the British Academy, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and has been a visiting scholar or professor at universities in Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, and he has lectured all over the world.

As an author, Professor Shambaugh has published more than 30 books, including most recently International Relations of Asia (third edition, 2022); China’s Leaders: From Mao to Now (2021); Where Great Powers Meet: America & China in Southeast Asia (2021); and China & the World (2020). Other books include The China Reader: Rising Power (2016); Tangled Titans: The United States and China (2012); China’s Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation (2008); Power Shift: China & Asia’s New Dynamics (2005); and Modernizing China’s Military (2002); Making China Policy (2001); The Modern Chinese State (2000); Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory & Practice (1994); American Studies of Contemporary China (1993); and Beautiful Imperialist (1991). He has also authored numerous reports, scholarly articles and chapters, newspaper op-eds, and book reviews. He is reasonably fluent in Chinese, and has some French, German, and Spanish.

Patricia M. Kim

Patricia M. Kim is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at Brookings and holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. She is an expert on Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and U.S. alliance management and regional security dynamics in East Asia.

Previously, Kim served as a China specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she focused on China’s impact on conflict dynamics around the world and directed major projects on U.S.-China strategic stability and China’s growing presence in the Red Sea region. She was also a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, International Security Program Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program at Princeton University.

Kim’s writing and research has been featured widely in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The South China Morning Post. She frequently briefs U.S. government officials in her areas of expertise and has testified before the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade.

Kim received her doctoral degree from the Department of Politics at Princeton University and her bachelor’s degree with highest distinction in political science and Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and proficient in Japanese. Kim is also a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Robert G. Sutter

Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University (2011-Present ). He also served as Director of the School’s main undergraduate program involving over 2,000 students from 2013-2019. His earlier full-time position was Visiting Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University (2001-2011).

A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, Sutter has published 22 books (four with multiple editions), over 300 articles and several hundred government reports dealing with contemporary East Asian and Pacific countries and their relations with the United States. His most recent book is Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy of an Emerging Global Force, Fifth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Sutter’s government career (1968-2001) saw service as senior specialist and director of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service, the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and the Pacific at the US Government’s National Intelligence Council, the China division director at the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Panel 3: Economic Policy

Maggie Chen

Maggie Xiaoyang Chen is a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University. Professor Chen’s areas of research expertise includes multinational firms, international trade, and regional trade agreements and her work as been published extensively in leading academic journals.

She has worked as an economist in the research department of the World Bank, a consultant for various regional divisions of the World Bank and the International Finance Cooperation since 2003, a contributor to the World Development Report and World Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Flagship Report, and a trade policy consultant for the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. Professor Chen is also a co-editor of the Economic Inquiry. Professor Chen received her Ph.D and M.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her B.A. in Economics from Beijing Normal University.

David Dollar

David Dollar is a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and host of the Brookings trade podcast, Dollar&Sense. He is a leading expert on China’s economy and U.S.-China economic relations. From 2009 to 2013, Dollar was the U.S. Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China, based in Beijing, facilitating the macroeconomic and financial policy dialogue between the United States and China. Prior to joining Treasury, Dollar worked 20 years for the World Bank, serving as country director for China and Mongolia, based in Beijing (2004-2009). His other World Bank assignments focused on Asian economies, including South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. Dollar also worked in the World Bank’s research department. His publications focus on economic reform in China, globalization, and economic growth. He also taught economics at University of California Los Angeles, during which time he spent a semester in Beijing at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1986. He has a doctorate in economics from New York University and a bachelor’s in Chinese history and language from Dartmouth College.

Stephen B. Kaplan

Stephen B. Kaplan is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for International Economic Policy. He is also a current global fellow at the Wilson Center. Professor Kaplan joined the GWU faculty in the fall of 2010 after completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. While completing his doctorate at Yale University, Kaplan also worked as a researcher for former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Prior to his doctoral studies, Professor Kaplan worked as a senior economic researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, writing extensively on developing country economics, global financial market developments, and emerging market crises for more than a half-decade.