2014 Symposium Speakers

Keynote Speaker

Mr. Daniel R. Russel

Daniel R. Russel is the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary on July 12, 2013, Mr. Russel served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President and National Security Staff Senior Director for Asian Affairs. During his tenure there, he helped formulate President Obama’s strategic rebalance to the Asia Pacific Region, including efforts to strengthen alliances, deepen U.S. engagement with multilateral organizations, and expand cooperation with emerging powers in the region. In 1996, Mr. Russel was awarded the State Department's Una Chapman Cox Fellowship sabbatical and authored America’s Place in the World, a book published by Georgetown University. Before joining the Foreign Service, he was manager for an international firm in New York City. Mr. Russel was educated at Sarah Lawrence College and University College, University of London, UK.

David Rawson Memorial Lecture

Dr. Greg Austin

Dr. Greg Austin is a professorial fellow with the EastWest Institute, where he is working to identify and produce policy papers on new and emerging areas of global risks, threats and challenges as head of the Policy Innovation Unit. He was appointed to his current position after serving five years as vice president of program development and rapid response at the Institute. Austin’s career in international affairs spans thirty years and consists of several senior positions in academia, government and policy organizations including the International Crisis Group and the Foreign Policy Centre, London. Austin holds a doctorate in international relations and recently delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Canada-U.S. Cybersecurity Conference. He has authored six books and dozens of articles on topics ranging from global security threats to Chinese foreign policy, and he recently finished his latest book, Cyber Policy in China.

China and the U.S. in Africa

Amb. David Shinn

Ambassador David Shinn has been an adjunct professor since 2001 at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.  He served for 37 years in the U.S. Foreign Service with assignments at embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sudan and as ambassador to Burkina Faso (1987-1990) and Ethiopia (1996-1999).  His assignments in the State Department in Washington included coordinator for Somalia during the international intervention in 1993 and director for East Africa and the Horn.  He is the co-author of China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (2012) and Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia (2013).  He is a frequent guest on BBC, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, CCTV and NPR.  He has a PhD in political science from George Washington University.

Dr. Fei-Ling Wang

Dr. Fei-Ling Wang, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania), is a professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology. He has taught at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) and held visiting and adjunct positions in China, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Macau, and Singapore. He is the author of six books (two co-edited) and has published over 70 book chapters and articles. He has appeared in news media such as Al Jazeera, AP, BBC, Businessweek, CNN, Radio China International, Financial Times, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post, UPI, The Wall Street Journal, and the Xinhua News Agency. Wang has had numerous research grants including Minerva Chair grant, Fulbright Senior Scholar grant and Hitachi Fellowship. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ms. Yun Sun

Ms. Yun Sun is a fellow with the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center.  Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations and China’s relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes. From 2011 to early 2014, she was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution jointly appointed by the Foreign Policy Program and the Global Development Program where she focused on the Chinese national security decision-making processes and China-Africa relations. From 2008 to 2011, Yun was the China Analyst for International Crisis Group based in Beijing, specializing on China's foreign policy towards conflict countries in Asia and Africa. Prior to ICG, she worked on U.S.- Asia relations in Washington DC for five years. Yun earned her master’s degree in international policy and practice from George Washington University, an MA in Asia Pacific studies and a BA in international relations from Foreign Affairs College in Beijing.

Dr. Seifudein Adem

Dr. Seifudein Adem is the Associate Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Associate Research Professor of Political Science at Binghamton University, New York, USA. Dr. Adem has taught at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) and University of Tsukuba (Japan). He is also a former President of the New York African Studies Association and a founding member of the International Association of Asia-Pacific Studies. His academic articles have appeared in such journals as Review of International Affairs, African Studies Review, China Monitor and African and Asian Studies.

U.S. Pivot Change and Asia’s Response 

Dr. Zhu Feng

Dr. Zhu Feng began his undergraduate studies at the Department of International Politics at Peking University in 1981 and received his PhD. from Peking University in 1991. He is currently a professor at the university's School of International Studies and Deputy Director of the Center for International & Strategic Studies (CISS). He writes extensively on regional security in East Asia, the nuclear issue in North Korea, American national security strategy, China-US relations and missile defense. He is a leading Chinese security expert and senior research fellow of the Center for Peace and Development of China. Professor Zhu Feng sits on a couple of editorial boards of several scholarly journals, consults independently for the Chinese government and the private sector, and comments frequently on television and radio and in the print media on Chinese foreign affairs and security policy.

Dr. Shinju Fujihira

Dr. Shinju Fujihira is the Executive Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in Government from Cornell University, and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. His research has examined the fiscal origins of great power rivalry, and Japanese politics and foreign policy. He is the author of "Legacies of the Abe Administration" and "Can Japan Cope with China's Rise?" (from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) and his interview on Japan's partisan politics and foreign policy has appeared in the Asahi Shimbun.

Dr. Gary Samore

As of February 2013, Dr. Gary Samore is the Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Prior to that, he served for four years as President Obama’s White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), where he served as the principal advisor to the President on all matters relating to arms control and the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and WMD terrorism. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Samore was Vice President for Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, and before that he was vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago. From 2001 to 2005, he was Director of Studies and Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. Dr. Samore was also Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export controls during the Clinton Administration.  He was responsible for formulating and coordinating U.S. policy to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and missile delivery systems. Dr. Samore received his MA and PhD in government from Harvard University in 1984.

Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee

Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee, Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies and Assistant Professor at The Fletcher School, teaches courses on Korea and U.S.-East Asia relations. He is a Research Fellow with the National Asia Research Program, a joint initiative by the National Bureau of Asia Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Associate in Research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University. In 2005 he launched at Harvard's Korea Institute a new seminar series, the “Kim Koo Forum on U.S.-Korea Relations.” He has numerous recent publications, and comments widely in print media and on TV.

Military and Cyber

Mr. Ian Easton

Mr. Ian Easton is a Research Fellow at the Project 2049 Institute. Before his current fellowship at the Project 2049 Institute, he spent two years at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) as a China analyst, where he collected, translated and analyzed primary source Chinese language materials on behalf of U.S. Navy, Department of Defense and other government sponsors. Mr. Easton spent a total of five years in Taiwan (the Republic of China) and the People’s Republic of China. During his time in the region he worked as a research intern for the Asia Bureau Chief of Defense News. He also consulted at a Taiwanese think tank, the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies, and Island Technologies, Inc., a software company. Mr. Easton holds an M.A. in China studies from National Chengchi University in Taipei, a B.A. in international studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a certification in advanced Mandarin Chinese. He received his formal language training at National Taiwan Normal University’s Mandarin Training Center in Taipei, and Fudan University in Shanghai.

Joel Wuthnow

Joel Wuthnow, Ph.D. is an Asia analyst in the China Security Affairs Group. His research interests include Chinese foreign and security policy, U.S.-China relations, and Chinese domestic politics. He is the author of a book, Chinese Diplomacy and the United Nations Security Council (Routledge, 2012) and several articles in East Asia-related academic journals. Prior to joining CNA, Wuthnow held fellowships in the China & the World Program at Princeton University and at the Brookings Institution. He received an A.B., summa cum laude, in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, an M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. He has also spent nearly two years studying and conducting research in China.

Dr. Greg Austin

Dr. Greg Austin is a professorial fellow with the EastWest Institute, where he is working to identify and produce policy papers on new and emerging areas of global risks, threats and challenges as head of the Policy Innovation Unit. He was appointed to his current position after serving five years as vice president of program development and rapid response at the Institute. Austin’s career in international affairs spans thirty years and consists of several senior positions in academia, government and policy organizations including the International Crisis Group and the Foreign Policy Centre, London. Austin holds a doctorate in international relations and recently delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Canada-U.S. Cybersecurity Conference. He has authored six books and dozens of articles on topics ranging from global security threats to Chinese foreign policy, and he recently finished his latest book, Cyber Policy in China.

Dr. Alison Russell

Dr. Alison Russell is an assistant professor of Political Science and International Studies at Merrimack College. She recently taught a class on cybersecurity at Boston College, and has also lectured for Tufts University. Dr. Russell is also a non-resident research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses where her work focuses on cybersecurity and maritime strategy, critical maritime infrastructure protection, global naval engagement engagement strategy, and political-military challenges in the Middle East. She holds a Ph.D. from our very own Fletcher School and is the author of her recently published book Cyber Blockades.

Foreign Media Perceptions

Ivan Rasmussen

Ivan Rasmussen is a PhD Candidate (ABD, Expected May 2014) at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. He formerly was a guest lecturer in the Department of International Studies at Renmin Daxue (People’s University) in Beijing (PRC) and an Adjunct Lecturer at Boston College teaching courses on Theories of International Relations and American Foreign Policy. Academically, he focuses on international negotiation, conflict resolution, international organizations, and East Asia with an added emphasis on security studies. He completed undergraduate studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in 2006 and received his Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School in 2009. In addition to teaching at Boston College and Renmin Daxue, he has acted as a teaching fellow or assistant for multiple undergraduate and graduate courses. His academic work includes a range of interests with writings on Chinese international treaty behavior (Asian Journal of Public Affairs), how nationalism impacts Sino-Taiwanese negotiations (Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs), the changing politics of UN Peacekeeping, and public diplomacy.

Susan Jakes

Susan Jakes comes to the Asia Society from Yale University where she has been pursuing a Ph.D. in Chinese history. Her early work relating to China was as serving as an interpreter and personal assistant to Chinese exiles. In 2000 she moved to Hong Kong to cover China for TIME Magazine. She then moved to Beijing, where she served as as Time's Correspondent from 2002-2007. She received the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for her reporting on Chinese youth culture. In 2003 she broke the story of the Chinese government’s cover-up of the SARS outbreak, for which she received the Henry Luce Public Service Award.

Dr. Ying Zhu

Dr. Ying Zhu is a professor in and Chair of the Department of Media Culture. She has published eight books, including Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television (New Press, 2014). Her first research monograph, Chinese Cinema during the Era of Reform: The Ingenuity of the System (2003) initiated the study of Chinese cinema within the framework of political economy. Her second research monograph, Television in Post-Reform China: Serial Drama, Confucian Leadership and the Global Television Market (2008), together with two book volumes in which her work featured prominently—TV China (2009) and TV Drama in China (2008)—pioneered the subfield of Chinese TV drama studies. A recipient of a US National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2006) and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2008), Zhu has given talks and keynote speeches at leading universities and media institutions around the globe. She reviews manuscripts for major publications and evaluates grant proposals for research foundations in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the U.K., and the U.S. Zhu also produces current affairs documentary films, including Google vs. China (2011) and China: From Cartier to Confucius (2012), both screened on the Netherlands Public Television.

Dr. Stanley Rosen

Dr. Stanley Rosen is the Director of the East Asian Studies Center at USC’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and a professor of political science at USC specializing in Chinese politics and society. He studied Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong and has traveled to mainland China over 40 times over the last 30 years. His courses range from Chinese politics and Chinese film to political change in Asia, East Asian societies, comparative politics theory, and politics and film in comparative perspective. The author or editor of eight books and many articles, he has written on such topics as the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese legal system, public opinion, youth, gender, human rights, and film and the media. He is the co-editor of Chinese Education and Society and a frequent guest editor of other translation journals. In addition to his academic activities at USC, Professor Rosen has escorted eleven delegations to China for the National Committee on US-China Relations (including American university presidents, professional associations, and Fulbright groups), and consulted for the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the United States Information Agency, the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office and a number of private corporations, film companies, law firms and U.S. government agencies.