Speaker Biographies
Michael Auslin studies U.S.–East Asian relations, Asian security, U.S.–Japanese relations, and Asia-Pacific multilateral organizations as a resident scholar at AEI. Prior to joining the Institute, Mr. Auslin was an associate professor of history and senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, and a Fulbright and Japan Foundation Scholar. His writings on Japan and Japanese diplomacy include the books Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century, 1907–2007 (Japan Society, 2007).
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI and is a senior adviser to the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle. He serves on the advisory board of the Korea Economic Institute of America and is a founding member of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Mr. Eberstadt is regularly consulted by governmental and international organizations, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the World Bank. He has published over three hundred studies and articles in scholarly and popular journals, mainly on topics in demography, international development, and East Asian security. His dozen-plus books and monographs include The Poverty of Communism (Transaction, 1988), The Tyranny of Numbers (AEI Press, 1995), The End of North Korea (AEI Press, 1999), Korea’s Future and the Great Power (National Bureau of Asian Research, 2001), The North Korean Economy: Between Crisis and Catastrophe (Transaction, 2007), and, most recently, Europe’s Coming Demographic Challenge: Unlocking the Value of Health (AEI Press, 2007).
L. Gordon Flake was appointed executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation in February 1999. Prior to joining the Mansfield Foundation, he was a senior fellow and associate director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Before moving to the Atlantic Council, he served as director for research and academic affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America. Mr. Flake travels frequently to Japan, Korea, China, and other countries in Asia as a conference participant and lecturer. He also writes regularly on Korean issues in the U.S. and Asian press. Mr. Flake has published extensively on policy issues in Asia. His most recent publication, Paved with Good Intentions: The NGO Experience in North Korea (Praeger, 2003), examines the impact of nongovernmental organizations’ and United Nations humanitarian relief efforts in North Korea after 1995.
Jay P. Lefkowitz serves as the special envoy for North Korean human rights, a position to which he was appointed by President George W. Bush pursuant to the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. He is also a senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, where he serves clients in trial and appellate litigation. In addition, he provides strategic counseling to corporations and individuals, and conducts internal investigations. Previously, Mr. Lefkowitz served as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and general counsel in the Office of Management and Budget for President Bush. He was also director of cabinet affairs and deputy executive secretary to the domestic policy council under President George H. W. Bush. In 2004, Mr. Lefkowitz joined the U.S. delegation to the International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Berlin. He was also a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Mr. Lefkowitz is the author of numerous essays about law, politics, and religion that have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, The Public Interest, The Jerusalem Report, Commentary, and other publications.
Larry Allen Niksch is a specialist in Asian affairs with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. He focuses on U.S. security policy in East Asia and the western Pacific, political conditions of the countries of the region, and foreign policy developments within the region. In addition to his reports published by the Congressional Research Service and congressional committees, he has written articles for a number of journals and newspapers in the United States and Asia-Pacific countries. Mr. Niksch has spoken at numerous conferences in the United States and abroad. He is interviewed frequently by East Asian and U.S. media outlets and by Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Mr. Niksch is a senior adviser on East Asia to the PRS (Political Risk Services Group). He is a member of the editorial board of New Asia, published by the New Asia Research Institute in Seoul, and he was a member of the U.S. presidential observer group to the Philippine presidential election in February 1986.
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