Speaker Biographies
Dan Blumenthal joined AEI in November 2004 as a resident fellow in Asian studies. He currently serves as vice chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which he joined in 2005, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Board for the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for international security affairs during the George W. Bush administration. In addition to writing for AEI’s Asian Outlook series, he has written articles and op-eds for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, National Review, and numerous edited volumes. He is currently working on a book that will examine divides within the China policymaking community.
Aung Din is the policy director and co-founder of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. He served over four years behind bars as a political prisoner in Burma after organizing and helping lead that country’s nationwide pro-democracy uprising in 1988 as vice chairperson of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, the largest national student organization at the time. He is also the country representative of the Thai-Burmese border based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners—Burma. Mr. Din has spoken in many venues across the United States, comments frequently in the media, and has testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
Tom Malinowski has been Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch since April 2001, responsible for the organization’s overall advocacy efforts with the U.S. government. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, he served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and as senior director for foreign policy speechwriting at the National Security Council. From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Malinowski was a speechwriter for secretaries of state Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright and a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. He has also worked for the Ford Foundation and as a legislative aide to former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Malinowski appears frequently as a radio, television, and op-ed commentator on U.S. human rights policy worldwide.
Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at AEI who studies the United Nations, neoconservatism, the history of socialism and communism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, global democracy, terrorism, and the Bush Doctrine. In March 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appointed Mr. Muravchik to serve on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion. He has written extensively about democracy, human rights, the role of ideas and ideologies in international politics, and America’s role in the post–Cold War world. His articles appear frequently in Commentary, The New Republic, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His newest book, Lonely Voices, on democrats in the Arab world, is forthcoming from Encounter Books. He is also the author of The Future of the United Nations: Understanding the Past to Chart a Way Forward (AEI Press, 2005), Covering the Intifada: How the Media Reported the Palestinian Uprising (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2003), Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (Encounter Books, 2002), The Imperative of American Leadership (AEI Press, 1996), Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny (AEI Press, 1991), News Coverage of the Sandinista Revolution (University Press of America, 1988), and The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of Human Rights Policy (Hamilton Press, 1986). Mr. Muravchik serves as an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics.
Bo Hla-Tint is a member of parliament–elect for the National League for Democracy (NLD) and is the chairman of the finance committee for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the Burmese government in exile. He played a leading role in Mogok, his hometown, during the 1988 nationwide demonstrations for democracy that brought down the military-dominated Burmese Socialist Program Party government. Upon release from the two months of prison time he incurred for his activities, Mr. Hla-Tint joined the NLD, winning election to the Burmese parliament from the Mogok constituency. His was one of the 392 seats the NLD won out of the 485 in the May 1990 elections. After the military did not recognize the outcome of the vote, he became a cabinet minister in the NCGUB, which was established in December 1990. Through giving testimonies in support of the Burmese democracy movement before Congress, the Department of State, and many other venues while being featured in many media stories on the crisis in Burma, Mr. Hla-Tint has been in the forefront of worldwide activities to restore democracy in Burma.
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