Speaker Biographies

Christopher DeMuth has been president of AEI since 1986. He was previously managing director of Lexecon Inc., an economics consulting firm; editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget; executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and staff assistant to President Richard Nixon. He is a director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Companies and two family companies. Mr. DeMuth's essays have appeared in The American Enterprise, Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and other publications, and are posted at www.chrisdemuth.com.

James R. Lilley is a senior fellow in Asian studies at AEI. Mr. Lilley was the U.S. ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1989 to 1991 and to the Republic of Korea from 1986 to 1989. He served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs from 1991 to 1993. Mr. Lilley wrote the forewords for the AEI Press books Chinese Military Modernization (1996), Over the Line (1999), and China's Military Faces the Future (1999). He is also the coeditor of Beyond MFN: Trade with China and American Interests (AEI Press, 1994) and Crisis in the Taiwan Strait (AEI Press, 1997). Most recently, Mr. Lilley published his memoirs, China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia (Public Affairs, April 2004), which chronicles three generations of experiences of an American family in the Far East, and also provides a fascinating look at Asia's history and China’s relationship with the United States.

Ma Ying-jeou has served as mayor of Taipei since December 1998, winning reelection in 2002. In July 2005, he was elected by the first popular vote among party members to serve concurrently as chairman of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). Mayor Ma’s previous career in government includes positions as minister of state, minister of justice, and senior vice chairman and spokesperson for the Mainland Affairs Council, the principle body for managing cross-Strait relations. Within the Kuomintang, Mayor Ma has served as secretary general of the Central Committee for international affairs, as well as interpreter for presidents Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui. Mr. Ma has been a research consultant at the University of Maryland Law School as well as an associate professor of international law at National Chengchi Law School.

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