Updated – Sixth Annual China Defense and Security Conference

The Jamestown Foundation is proud to announce that the Sixth Annual China Defense and Security Conference will be held at the University Club (1135 16th St NW)on May 12th. The conference will feature a number of the best China Defense analysts who will be discussing the most pressing issues regarding China’s military modernization and reorganization.

Many of the participants are contributing authors to a forthcoming book from the Jamestown Foundation, China’s Evolving Military Strategy, which will be on sale at the event. More information about this volume is available here.

Note:
Dr. Kurt Campbell is unable to speak at this event due to an urgent change in his schedule. Speaking in his place will be Dr. Michael Green, former senior director for Asia at the NSC and a prominent expert on Asian security issues at CSIS. We apologize for the last minute change and look forward to your participation.

Participant Biographies

Dan Alderman

Daniel Alderman is the Deputy Director of Defense Group Inc. He previously worked for in various capacities at the National Bureau of Asian Research. Mr. Alderman’s research interests include China’s PLA and East Asian security. He co-authored with You Ji the chapter “Changing Civil-Military Relations in China” in The PLA at Home and Abroad: Assessing the Operational Capabilities of China’s Military (2010). He also authored the 2009 PLA Conference Colloquium Brief, “The PLA at Home and Abroad" (2010). Mr. Alderman completed an MA in Asian Studies at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and was a 2008-09 Boren NSEP fellow in Beijing, where he studied advanced Chinese in the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University. Before joining NBR, he studied Chinese language at Guizhou University in Guiyang and at Capitol Normal University in China. He is a 2006 graduate from Presbyterian College, where he majored in Political Science and History.

Kenneth Allen

Ken Allen is a Senior China Analyst with Defense Group Inc. (DGI), where he focuses on China’s military organizational structure, personnel, education, training, and foreign relations with particular emphasis on the PLA Air Force. During 21 years in the U.S. Air Force (1971-1992), he served as an enlisted Chinese and Russian linguist and intelligence officer with tours in Taiwan, Berlin, Japan, Hawaii, China, and Washington DC. From 1987-1989, he served as the Assistant Air Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He was inducted into DIA’s Defense Attaché Hall of Fame in 1997. He has B.A. degrees from the University of California at Davis and the University of Maryland and an M.A. degree from Boston University. He has written numerous monographs, book chapters, and journal articles on the PLA. He has also been a speaker at the first five China Defense and Security Conferences.

Dennis J. Blasko

Dennis J. Blasko, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), served 23 years as a Military Intelligence Officer and Foreign Area Officer specializing in China. Mr. Blasko was an army attaché in Beijing from 1992-1995 and in Hong Kong from 1995-1996. He also served in infantry units in Germany, Italy, and Korea and in Washington at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Headquarters Department of the Army (Office of Special Operations), and the National Defense University War Gaming and Simulation Center. Mr. Blasko is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He has written numerous articles and chapters on the Chinese military and defense industries and is the author of the book, The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century, second edition (Routledge, 2012).

Michael Chase

Michael S. Chase, Ph.D., is a Senior Political Scientist at RAND and an adjunct professor in the China Studies and Strategic Studies Departments at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. A specialist in China and Asia-Pacific security issues, he was previously an Associate Professor at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) in Newport, Rhode Island, where he served as director of the strategic deterrence group in the Warfare Analysis and Research Department and taught in the Strategy and Policy Department. Prior to joining the faculty at NWC, he was a Research Analyst at Defense Group Inc. and an Associate International Policy Analyst at RAND. He is the author of the book Taiwan’s Security Policy and numerous chapters and articles on China and Asia-Pacific security issues. His current research focuses on Chinese military modernization, China’s nuclear policy and strategy and nuclear force modernization, Taiwan’s defense policy, and Asia-Pacific security issues.

John Costello

John Costello is Congressional Innovation Fellow for the New American Foundation and a former Research Analyst at Defense Group Inc. He was a member of the US Navy and a DOD Analyst. He specializes in information warfare, electronic warfare and non-kinetic counterspace issues.

Andrew S. Erickson

Dr. Erickson is Professor of Strategy in, and a core founding member of, the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute. He serves on the Naval War College Review’s Editorial Board. Since 2008 he has been an Associate in Research at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Erickson is also an expert contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2012 the National Bureau of Asian Research awarded Erickson the inaugural Ellis Joffe Prize for PLA StudiesHe is the author of the volume Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Development (Jamestown, 2013) and coauthor of two additional books: Gulf of Aden Anti-Piracy and China’s Maritime Commons Presence (Jamestown, 2015), as well as Assessing China’s Cruise Missile Ambitions. He has published extensively in such peer-reviewed journals as China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Asian Security, Asia Policy, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Acta Astronautica. Erickson received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University and studied Mandarin at Beijing Normal University’s College of Chinese Language and Culture. He can be reached through www.andrewerickson.com.

Cristina Garafola

Ms. Garafola is a Project Associate-China Specialist at the RAND Corporation. She holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a certificate from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies. Cristina has previously worked at the Department of State, the Department of Treasury, and the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is fluent in Mandarin.

Michael Green

Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and chair in modern and contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs, with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. Before joining the NSC staff, he was senior fellow for East Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center and the Foreign Policy Institute, and an assistant professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and senior adviser on Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet.

Dr. Green is also currently a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a distinguished scholar at the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation in Tokyo. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Strategy Group, the America Australia Leadership Dialogue, the advisory board of the Center for a New American Security, and the editorial boards of the Washington Quarterly and the Journal of Unification Studies in Korea. He is also an associate of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Dr. Green has authored numerous books and articles on East Asian security. His current research includes a book project on the history of U.S. strategy in Asia; a survey of elite views of norms, power, and regional institutions in Asia; and a monograph on Japanese strategic culture. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from SAIS and did additional graduate and postgraduate research at Tokyo University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Kenyon College with highest honors. He holds a black belt in Iaido (sword) and has won international prizes on the great highland bagpipe.

Timothy R. Heath

Timothy R. Heath is Senior International and Defense Analyst at the RAND Corporation and a recognized expert on Chinese strategy and political-military topics. He served for five years as the senior analyst in the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) China Strategic Focus Group and has over fifteen years of experience in the US government as a specialist on China. Mr. Heath has authored many articles and a book chapter on topics related to Chinese security and political issues. He earned his MA in Asian Studies from George Washington University and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang

Dr. Huang is professor at Institute of Strategic Studies of Tamkang University, Founder and Chairman of the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies, and Secretary-General of the Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan. He is also a non-resident senior associate at the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Dr. Huang previously served in the ROC (Taiwan) Government as Deputy Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, and has been working closely with consecutive governments on foreign and security policy matters. Dr. Huang did his graduate studies at School of Foreign Service (MSFS), Georgetown University and Department of Political Science, George Washington University where he received his doctoral degree. Dr. Huang specializes in Asian and Chinese foreign & security affairs.

Peter Mattis

Peter Mattis is a Fellow in the China Program at The Jamestown Foundation. He edited Jamestown’s biweekly China Brief from 2011 to 2013. Prior to The Jamestown Foundation, Mr. Mattis worked as an international affairs analyst for the U.S. Government. He received his M.A. in Security Studies from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and earned his B.A. in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle. He also previously worked as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research in its Strategic Asia and Northeast Asian Studies programs. He is currently researching a book on Chinese intelligence.

Joe McReynolds

Joe McReynolds is a Research Analyst at Defense Group Inc.’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis. His research interests primarily center on China’s approach to computer network warfare and defense science & technology development. Mr. McReynolds has previously worked with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council for International Policy, and is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Graduate Security Studies programs. He speaks and reads Chinese and Japanese, and has lived and studied in Nagoya, Guilin and Beijing.

Kevin Pollpeter

Kevin Pollpeter is a Research Scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). He previously served as the Deputy Director of the East Asia Program at Defense Group Inc (DGI) where he managed a group of more than 20 China analysts. He is widely published on China national security issues, with a focus on China’s space program. His most recent publications include, “The PLAAF and the Integration of Air and Space Power,” in Richard P. Hallion, Roger Cliff, and Phillip C. Saunders, The Chinese Air Force: Evolving Concepts, Roles, and Capabilities (NDU, 2012) and “Controlling the Information Domain: Space, Cyber, and Electronic Warfare,” in Ashley J. Tellis and Travis Tanner, Strategic Asia 2012-2013: China’s Military Challenge (NBR: 2012). His other publications include “Upward and Onward: Technological Innovation and Organizational Change in China’s Space Industry” in the Journal of Strategic Studies (June 2011), “China’s Space Doctrine” in Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power (Naval Institute Press, 2011), as well as numerous articles in China Brief. A Chinese linguist, he holds an M.A. in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Jonathan Ray

Jonathan Ray is a Research Associate at Defense Group Inc. (DGI), where he conducts research and analysis using Chinese-language sources on foreign policy, national security, and science and technology issues. Previously he was a contract researcher at the National Defense University, where he wrote Red China’s “Capitalist Bomb”: Inside the Chinese Neutron Bomb Program.

Robert Suettinger

Robert Suettinger is a Senior Adviser and Consultant at the Stimson Center, working on issues pertaining to Chinese politics. Prior to joining Stimson, he was an Analytic Director at CENTRA Technology, Inc. for nine years. Previously, he had been Director of Research for MBP Consulting Limited LLC, a Senior Policy Analyst at RAND and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Suettinger retired from federal government service in 1998, after nearly 25 years in the intelligence and foreign policy bureaucracies. He joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1975, and spent his entire career in the analysis of Asian affairs. After several years as an analyst and manager in CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, he was assigned as Director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Subsequently, he served for five years as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Beginning in March 1994, Suettinger was Director of Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, where he assisted National Security Advisors Anthony Lake and Samuel R. Berger in the development of American policy toward East Asia. He returned to the NIC as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia in October 1997. Suettinger holds an M.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He served in the U.S. Army in the then Republic of Vietnam in 1969-70.