Speaker Biographies

June 24, 2005

Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow in Asian studies at AEI, where he writes on such issues as U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific, cross-straits relations between China and Taiwan, and U.S. defense posture in the region. Until November 2004, 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.

Terry Cooke is the founder and managing director of GC3 Strategy LLC, an international consultancy fostering bio/life science technology transactions and partnerships between the United States and Asia. He previously served as a commercial officer at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai and, more recently, as chief of the commercial section at the American Institute in Taiwan. In addition, Mr. Cooke has served as principal commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, as deputy senior commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy Tokyo, and as commercial officer in postings at Tokyo and the U.S. Consulate Shanghai. In 1990, while serving as commercial officer in Shanghai, Mr. Cooke received a superior honor award for service during the Tiananmen Incident and was confirmed as a member of the Senior Foreign Service in June 2002.

Shelley Rigger is the Brown Associate Professor of Political Science at Davidson College. She has acted as a consultant to the Foreign Service Institute, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Intelligence Council, and has given workshops to prepare future U.S. ambassadors and ambassador-level officials for China and Taiwan. Ms. Rigger is the author of numerous articles and chapters, as well as of two books on Taiwan politics: Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge, 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner, 2001).

Phillip C. Saunders has been a senior research professor at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies since January 2004. He previously worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he served as director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies from 1999–2004 and taught courses on Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, and East Asian security. Mr. Saunders has conducted research and consulted on East Asian security issues for Princeton University, the Council on Foreign Relations, RAND, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Mr. Saunders served as an officer in the United States Air Force from 1989–1993, working on Asian security issues at the Pentagon. He has published numerous articles on China, North Korea, and Asian security in journals including International Security, China Quarterly, China Journal, Survival, Pacific Review, and Orbis. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and has traveled throughout East Asia.

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