Speaker Biographies

April 4, 2005

Dan Blumenthal joined AEI in November 2004 as a resident fellow in Asian studies. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for international security affairs during the first George W. Bush administration. In that capacity, he led a team that formulated and implemented defense policies and programs toward and for these portfolio countries. Before his service at the Department of Defense, Mr. Blumenthal practiced law in New York and was as a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Balbina Y. Hwang is a policy analyst for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation. Ms. Hwang is completing her Ph.D. dissertation at Georgetown University, where she also lectures on international relations and political economy. She was a Fulbright Scholar to South Korea in 1998–99, where she conducted doctoral dissertation field research. Ms. Hwang is the editor of U.S. Korea Tomorrow, a quarterly magazine.

Nobukatsu Kanehara is the minister for political affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. Mr. Kanehara entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 1981, and has since served as counselor to the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations and director of the Legal Affairs Division, Policy Planning Division, and U.S.-Japan Security Treaty Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. A graduate of Tokyo University’s Department of Law, Mr. Kanehara has lectured on international law at Waseda University, Kyushu University, and Sophia University.

Andrew Shearer is the minister/counselor for political affairs at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, D.C. Before his appointment to Washington in September 2003, Mr. Shearer was senior adviser on strategic policy to Senator Robert Hill, minister for defense, beginning in 2002. Mr. Shearer joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2000 after spending six years in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Mr. Shearer has honors degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Melbourne and a Master of Philosophy (International Relations) from the University of Cambridge.

Lanxin Xiang is a professor of international relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Xiang earned his doctorate from the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1990. He is the author of numerous articles and books on both 20th-century and contemporary Chinese history and on Chinese foreign policy, including The Origins of the Boxer War (Curzon Press, 2002). In 2003–2004, Mr. Xiang was the Henry A. Kissinger scholar at the United States Library of Congress.