China Forum

Mary Kissel is Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor at Stephens Inc., a Little Rock, Arkansas based, privately held financial services firm, where she provides advice on geopolitical risk and macroeconomic trends to clients and the Stephens family. She joined the firm in March 2021. 
 
From October 2018 to January 2021, Ms. Kissel served as Senior Advisor to Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. In that role, she served as the Secretary’s chief advisor, conducted special projects on his behalf, played a key role in the reorientation of the U.S.-China relationship, and traveled to more than 60 countries. Prior to her State Department appointment, Ms. Kissel had a long and distinguished career on The Wall Street Journal editorial board, including stints as chief foreign policy writer in New York and Asia-Pacific editorial page editor, based in Hong Kong. She began her career in the fixed income division of Goldman Sachs in New York and London. 
 
Ms. Kissel is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, hosts the Nixon Seminar on Conservative Realism and National Security, and serves as a director of the American Australian Council, The Marathon Initiative, and RXO, Inc. She has appeared on major television, radio networks, and podcasts around the world, and her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, the Spectator, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Ms. Kissel is a graduate of Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 

Elfidar Iltebir is the President of the Uyghur American Association (UAA). Originally from East Turkistan, she immigrated to the United States in 2000. Iltebir earned a B.A. in Marketing from George Mason University and brings over two decades of experience in marketing and project management. As the daughter of a prominent Uyghur writer and journalist, she actively engages with and supports the Uyghur community, advocating fervently for their human rights. Iltebir has testified in US Congress and provided crucial insights to executive branch agencies and multilateral institutions, such as the UN. Beyond her advocacy work in governments, she has dedicated herself to spreading awareness about China’s genocide against Uyghurs in universities, faith institutions, and non-profit institutions across the United States.  

Ms. Louisa Greve is Director of Global Advocacy for the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Previously, Ms. Greve was Vice President for Programs and East Asia Director at the National Endowment for Democracy, with past experience at Special Olympics International, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the United Nations Development Program. She is an experienced non-profit advisor and an expert on human rights in China, having traveled and worked in China since 1980. Her first visit to East Turkistan was in 1988. She currently also serves as Washington Fellow for CSW, an advocacy group promoting freedom of religion or belief for all peoples and faiths. Ms. Greve has served on the Amnesty International USA board of directors, the Virginia Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the International Advisory Committee of the Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, and the Liberty’s Promise board of directors. She is the author of several book chapters on ethnic issues and human rights in China, and has testified before Congress on democracy in Asia.

Romain Franklin has covered China for several French newspapers, off and on, from 1985 until 2015.  He co-directed “The World According to Xi Jinping” in 2018, and “The World of Xi Jinping” in 2022. 

Matt Turpin is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in U.S. policy towards the People’s Republic of China, economic statecraft and technology innovation.  He is also a senior advisor at Palantir Technologies. From 2018 to 2019, Turpin served as the U.S. National Security Council’s Director for China and the Senior Advisor on China to the Secretary of Commerce. In those roles, he was responsible for managing the interagency effort to develop and implement U.S. Government policies on the People’s Republic of China. Before entering the White House, Turpin served over 22 years in the U.S. Army in a variety of combat units in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and as an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He retired from the Army in 2017. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an advisor on the People’s Republic of China to the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon and was assigned to assist the Deputy Secretary of Defense with the Defense Innovation Initiative, a program to examine the implications of great power competition on the Department of Defense and the role of innovation in U.S. defense policy. From 2010 to 2013, Turpin was the Chief of Crisis Planning at the United States Pacific Command in Honolulu.  There he assisted in the planning and implementation of policies and operations for America’s largest Combatant Command. Turpin has a MA in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Rushan Abbas is executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, a group she founded in 2017 to advocate and promote human rights and democratic freedoms for Uyghurs. Rushan Abbas started her activism work while she was a student, organizing and leading in the pro-democracy demonstrations at Xinjiang University in 1985 and 1988. Since her arrival in the United States in 1989, Ms. Abbas has been an ardent campaigner for the human rights of the Uyghur people and has worked closely with members of Congress since the 1990s. From 2002 till 2013, Ms. Abbas translated for the 22 Uyghurs who were being held in Guantanamo and worked closely with the US Department of Defense, Department of Justice, State Department, and US administration with their efforts on resettlement of 22 Uyghurs from Guantanamo Bay to other countries. After working for more than 20 years in global business development, international relations, and government affairs throughout the Middle East, Africa, CIS regions, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, and Latin America, now Rushan Abbas is a full-time activist working to advocate for Uyghur people while they are facing genocide by the Chinese regime. Under her leadership, Campaign for Uyghurs led the “One Voice One Step” movement and successfully organized a demonstration on March 15th, 2018, in 14 countries and 18 cities on the same day to protest China’s detention of millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps. Ms. Abbas works with groups in the United States, Canada, the UK, and other parts of Europe, Australia, Japan, and Turkey to highlight the Uyghur cause and in support of empowering Uyghur women and youth for activism. Ms. Abbas frequently briefs US lawmakers and officials on the human rights situation in East Turkistan and testifies at the United States senate and congress on the Chinese regime’s crimes against humanity. She regularly appears on media outlets to advocate for the Uyghur cause and gives public speeches, having spoken for audiences at Holocaust museums, universities, U.S. embassies, grassroots groups, and more.

Michael Auslin, PhD, is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in US policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Auslin is the author of six books, including Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific and the best-selling The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region. He is a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and National Review, and his writing appears in other leading publications, including the Financial Times, The Spectator, and Foreign Policy. He comments regularly for US and foreign print and broadcast media. Previously, Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the senior advisor for Asia at the Halifax International Security Forum, a senior fellow at London’s Policy Exchange, and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Among his honors are being named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Fulbright Scholar, and a German Marshall Fund Marshall Memorial Fellow. He serves on the board of the Wilton Park USA Foundation. Auslin cohosts the podcast The Pacific Century with John Yoo, where they broadly address developments in China and Asia. They discuss the latest politics, economics, law, and cultural news, with a focus on US policy in the region.

Ambassador Andrew Bremberg is the President of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Previously Ambassador Bremberg served as the Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva. Ambassador Bremberg has a long history of public service. Prior to his work at the UN, he served as Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council for the Executive Office of the President. He previously served as Policy Advisor and Counsel on Nominations for the Office of Senate Majority Leader. He also worked for the non-profit MITRE Corporation as a senior health policy-analyst and department manager, and for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Ambassador Bremberg earned a B.A. from Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio and a J.D. from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Maria have four children and live in Virginia.

Emily de La Bruyère is co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a geopolitical consultancy, and a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies with a focus on China policy. Emily has pioneered novel data collection and analysis tools tailored to Beijing’s strategic and institutional structures. She has extensive Chinese language research and program management experience. She has testified before the Senate Banking Committee and US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Emily’s work was the first Western analysis to document Beijing’s China Standards 2035 national plan. She is at the cutting edge of US analysis on China’s military-civil fusion strategy and platform geopolitics, as well as their implications for global security and the economic order. She uses primary-source, Chinese-language materials to provide insight on geopolitical, technological, and economic change for decision-makers. Emily is a co-founder of Horizon Advisory, a consulting firm focused on the implications of China’s competitive approach to geopolitics. Her commentary has appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Tech Crunch, CNBC, Bloomberg, and The National Interest. She holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton University and an M.A. summa cum laude from Sciences Po, Paris where she was a Michel David-Weill Fellow. She contributes to the China work within FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, Center on Military and Political Power, and Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation.

Irina Bukharin is the Program Director for Human Security at C4ADS. The Human Security Program exposes the illicit networks and systems underlying human rights crises, empowering global stakeholders to act decisively against those who threaten human security around the world. Irina received her bachelor’s degree in political science from Swarthmore College, and she is currently pursuing a master’s degree in global environmental policy from American University. She speaks Russian and has lived and studied in Kazakhstan.

Claire Chu is a senior China analyst at Janes, an open-source intelligence firm. She researches the geopolitical and national security implications of China’s global economic activity, including foreign direct investment and global financial flows. Claire launched the Belt and Road Monitor in 2017, which provides a comprehensive biweekly overview of China’s overseas trade and investment activities and policy developments. Claire recently joined Janes through the acquisition of RWR Advisory Group, where she was a lead analyst in the China practice. She is also a member of the 2022 class of National Security Fellows at the National Security Fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Claire previously held research roles at various think tanks, including the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin and Project 2049 Institute in Arlington. She has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and her commentary has been featured in major media outlets in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Dr. Lee Edwards is Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He is the Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and an adjunct professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and author or editor of over 25 books, including biographies of President Ronald Reagan, Senator Barry Goldwater, Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and William F. Buckley. He was the founding director of the Institute of Political Journalism at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and has also served as President of the Philadelphia Society and been a media fellow at the Hoover Institution. His awards and honors include the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, the Millennium Star of Lithuania, the Cross of Terra Mariana of Estonia, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy from the Republic of China (Taiwan), the John Ashbrook Award, the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award, Legend of YAF from Young America’s Foundation, and the Walter Judd Freedom Award. Edwards holds a Ph.D. in world politics from Catholic University and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Grove City College. He did graduate work at the Sorbonne and holds a B.A. in English from Duke University.

Dr. Edwin J. Feulner is the Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and recipient of the Foundation’s Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2006. He is also Founder and former President of The Heritage Foundation. Over the course of his career, Feulner has served as an analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies (now the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, an aide to Representative Melvin Laird (R-WI) and Chief of Staff to Congressman Phil Crane (R-IL), and as the Executive Director of the Republican Study Committee. Feulner took over the presidency of The Heritage Foundation in 1977, transforming it from a small think tank with nine employees to a highly influential research and policy institution of over two hundred and fifty. Feulner has also held leadership positions in a wide array of academic, political, and economic non-profits organizations and universities, and served on the Gingrich-Mitchell Congressional UN Reform Task Force and the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, of which he was Chairman. He served as the Public Member (Ambassador) of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament. Feulner has written eight books, including The American Spirit. He holds a B.A. from Regis University, an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.

John Foote concentrates his practice on international trade and customs matters with a particular focus on challenges involving forced labor in supply chains. John combines an in-depth understanding of U.S. trade policy with extensive practical experience in trade compliance and the realities of global supply chains to help companies analyze and respond strategically to the always-evolving trade landscape. Whether helping companies seize opportunities presented by new trade agreements (like the USMCA) or helping companies navigate trade enforcement actions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or the U.S. Trade Representative, John’s advice is characterized by this dual policy and compliance orientation. John advises companies on strategies to mitigate the impact of high tariffs, and advocates for the fair and effective enforcement of U.S. trade laws. John represents clients in enforcement and compliance proceedings before CBP (including Enforce and Protect Act proceedings, forced labor enforcement actions, seizures and customs audits) and helps companies leverage the building blocks of trade (classification, valuation, country of origin, preferential trade agreements, drawback, tariff exclusions and waivers) to reduce the unnecessary costs of doing business. John represents clients in customs and trade disputes before the U.S. Court of International Trade and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. John is recognized as a thought leader on the use of trade tools to address labor conditions in global supply chains, including the U.S. ban on imported goods made with forced labor, and the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism in the USMCA, and has counseled various high profile brands regarding how these sources of law should inform their sustainable sourcing and responsible supply chain practices. Previously, John was a law clerk for the Hon. Gregory W. Carman at the U.S. Court of International Trade. He has a strong commitment to pro bono legal work.

Shelly Heald Han is chief of staff and director of engagement at the Fair Labor Association. In this role she works to ensure the organization can efficiently meet its mission by overseeing special projects and strategic communications, and implementing the strategic plan. Han also manages FLA’s Civil Society Caucus, facilitates outreach to labor groups and other stakeholders, and coordinates the organization’s public affairs activities that promote labor rights around the globe. Han’s career has centered on human rights advocacy and corporate social responsibility. From 2000–06, Han held policy positions on trade, national security and immigration at the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security. Prior to joining the government, she worked in the private sector helping companies ethically do business in international markets. Han has a master’s degree in international commerce and policy from George Mason University and a double-major undergraduate degree in political science and East Asian Studies is from the University of Arizona. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and in her spare time is a professional photographer.

Russell Hsiao is the executive director of Global Taiwan Institute, senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation, and adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum. He is a former Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia. He previously served as a senior research fellow at The Project 2049 Institute and national security fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Prior to those positions he was the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation from October 2007- to July 2011 and a special associate in the International Cooperation Department at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. While in law school, he clerked within the Office of the Chairman at the Federal Communications Commission and the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Mr. Hsiao received his J.D. and certificate from the Law and Technology Institute at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Catholic University’s Journal of Law and Technology. He received a B.A. in international studies from the American University’s School of International Service and the University Honors Program.

James A. Millward 米華健 is Professor of Inter-societal History at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, teaching Chinese, Central Asian and world history. He also teaches in the program of the Máster Oficial en Estudios de Asia Oriental at the University of Granada, Spain. In the Winter Quarter of 2022, he joined both Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s (APARC) China Program and the Stanford History Department as a visiting scholar. His specialties include Qing empire; the silk road; Eurasian lutes and music in history; and historical and contemporary Xinjiang. He follows and comments on current issues regarding Xinjiang, the Uyghurs and other Xinjiang indigenous peoples, and PRC ethnicity policy. Millward has served on the boards of the Association for Asian Studies (China and Inner Asia Council) and the Central Eurasian Studies Society, and was president of the Central Eurasian Studies Society in 2010. He is series editor for the “Silk Roads” book series published by Chicago University Press. His publications include Eurasian Crossroads: a History of Xinjiang (2021; 2007), The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013), New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde (2004), and Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity and Empire in Qing Central Asia (1998). Jim’s articles and op-eds on contemporary China appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and other media. He has appeared on the PBS Newshour, the Sinica Podcast, All Things Considered, Al Jazeera, i24 News and other broadcast programs and networks.

Jawad Mir is an independent filmmaker based out of Toronto, Canada. His story-telling abilities has allowed him to direct and produce several feature documentaries all over the world including “In Search of My Sister,” which follows the story of an American Uyghur Activist (Rushan Abbas) whose sister is taken by the Chinese Communist Party. Mir’s other productions include “Citizen of Moria”, “Baristas”, “Escape from Manus Island”, “Flippin’ Red” and “Only 78”. His films have been acquired by the production house The Orchard and Samuel L. Goldwyn.

The Honorable Nazak Nikakhtar brings over two decades of experience in international trade and national security to help clients succeed in the domestic and global marketplace. Through leadership roles in the U.S. government and private sector, Nazak has leveraged her valuable insights into the expansive range of U.S. and international laws, regulatory and policy processes, and federal agency resources to achieve clients’ business objectives. From 2018 to 2021, with unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Nazak served as the Department of Commerce’s Assistant Secretary for Industry & Analysis at the International Trade Administration (ITA). Nazak also fulfilled the duties of the Under Secretary for Industry and Security at Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). In these roles, Nazak was the agency’s primary liaison with U.S. industry and trade associations, and she shaped major initiatives to strengthen U.S. industry competitiveness, promote innovation, and accelerate economic and job growth. As one of the key national security experts in the U.S. government, she developed and implemented innovative laws, regulations, and policies to safeguard strategically important technologies, strengthen the U.S. industrial base, and protect the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States. As the Department’s lead on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), she played a key role in shaping U.S. investment policy. As the head of the agency’s trade policy office, she advised the U.S. government on legal and economic issues impacting critical technologies, advanced manufacturing, financial services, e-commerce, data privacy, cybersecurity, critical minerals/rare earths, and energy competition. Finally, as the federal agency’s lead on supply chain assessments, Nazak spearheaded the United States’ first-ever whole-of-government initiative to evaluate and strengthen supply chains across all strategic sectors of the economy.

Sean R. Roberts is a Professor of International Affairs and Director of the International Development Studies (IDS) MA program at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He received his MA in Visual Anthropology (2001) and his PhD in Cultural Anthropology (2003) from the University of Southern California. Both during the completion of his PhD and following graduation, he worked for a total of 7 years for the United States Agency for International Development in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, managing democracy, governance, and human rights programs in the five Central Asian Republics. He also taught for two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Europe, Eurasian, and Russian Studies before coming to the Elliott School in 2008. Academically, he has written extensively on the Uyghur people of China and Central Asia about whom he wrote his dissertation, and his 2020 book The War on the Uyghurs (Princeton University Press) was recognized by the journal Foreign Affairs as one of their “best of books” for 2021. He also continues to do analytical work for development organizations, having conducted high-level assessments that informed future USAID programming on local governance decentralization (2014) and changing corrupt behaviors (2015) in Ukraine as well as on opportunities for reform in Uzbekistan (2017) and on people-centered justice in Kyrgyzstan (2022). He is frequently consulted by development organizations on issues related to governance, democratization, human rights, and the rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples, and he comments on current events in the media related both to the situation of the Uyghur people in China and to political developments in Central Asia. Dr. Roberts teaches core classes in the IDS program as well as two seminars open to all students: “Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities, and Development” and “The Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Approach to International Development.”

Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at FDD, where he analyzes great power competition with China. He previously spent more than a decade serving in a series of sensitive national security roles with the U.S. government, where he primarily focused on East Asia. In that capacity, Craig regularly briefed federal law enforcement, U.S. military personnel, foreign governments, congressional oversight committees, and the White House on a wide range of issues, including China’s overseas military expansion, Chinese malign influence, and North Korea. Craig is a regular contributor to outlets such as Foreign Policy, The Hill, Defense News, Newsweek, The National Interest, The Diplomat, Real Clear Defense, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, Yahoo, CNBC, NBC News, and Fox News. Craig received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Florida and his master’s degree in international policy from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

Michael Sobolik joined AFPC as a Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies in September 2019. His work covers American and Chinese grand strategy, regional economic and security trends, America’s alliance architecture in Asia, and human rights. Michael also serves as editor of AFPC’s Indo-Pacific Monitor e-bulletin, AFPC’s review of developments in the region. His analysis has appeared in The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, The Hill, Jane’s Defence Weekly, The National Interest, National Review, Newsweek, Providence, and RealClearDefense. Prior to joining AFPC, Michael served as a Legislative Assistant in the United States Senate from 2014 to 2019. While in the Senate, Michael drafted legislation on China, Russia, India, Taiwan, North Korea, and Cambodia, as well as strategic systems and missile defense. Michael is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where he studied political philosophy as an undergraduate. He also earned his Master of International Affairs degree in American grand strategy and U.S.-China relations at the Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Ana Swanson writes about trade and international economics for The New York Times. She previously covered the economy, trade and the Federal Reserve for The Washington Post. Before that, she was an editor of Foreign Policy’s South Asia Channel and the editor in chief of China Economic Review magazine in Shanghai. She has a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from Northwestern University and a master’s in international relations with a focus in China and international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Before moving to Washington, she lived and worked in China for eight years.

Daniel Tobin is a member of the China studies faculty at the National Intelligence University (NIU) in Bethesda, Maryland, and a Senior Associate (Non-resident), Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS. Prior to joining NIU and CSIS Mr. Tobin served for more than a dozen years as a China specialist for the Department of Defense, most recently in Hawaii as the senior analyst in the United States Indo-Pacific Command’s China Strategic Focus Group. His research interests include China’s national strategy and foreign policy, elite politics, civil-military relations, and the history and ideology of the Communist Party of China. He holds an M.A. in China studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. from Wesleyan University’s College of Social Studies, an interdisciplinary program in history, government, economics, and social theory. He studied Chinese language at Beijing Normal University and the Capital University of Economics and Business (also in Beijing).

In early 2018, Chinese authorities seized Ovalbek Turdakun, a Christian Chinese national of Kyrgyz descent, in front of his wife and child with no just cause or due process. Ovalbek was then imprisoned by the CCP for 10 months in a Xinjiang labor camp where he was subjected to unspeakable gross human rights violations, including torture and forced medical procedures which had debilitating effects on his major motor functions. Ovalbek also witnessed the use of technology from Chinese companies such as Hikvision within the concentration camp. After his unexpected release in December of 2018, Ovalbek fled with his wife and 11-year-old son to Kyrgyzstan, where CCP officials actively sought their return to Xinjiang. In early April, 2022, Ovalbek Turdakun and his family—with the help of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and Internet Protocol Video Market (IPVM)—fled to the U.S. That same month, Ovalbek spoke at a VOC-IPVM press conference, where he provided in precise and vivid detail the mental, physical, and emotional torture to which he was subjected while imprisoned in a Chinese Communist government-run concentration camp in Xinjiang. He detailed how cameras everywhere tracked the detainees’ every move. He also explained that he and his other 22 cell mates were given unidentified injections, herbal tea, and pills which caused painful and severe reactions. Ovalbek experienced full-body rashes, nerve pain, eye aches, and serious vision problems. While the guards portrayed drinking the tea as a choice, Ovalbek said detainees had no personal choices as they were under constant surveillance. He has been interviewed by Axios, TechCruch, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Broadcasting Network. Ovalbek is the first Christian and first ethnic Kyrgyz to survive China’s concentration camps.

Dr. Virginia Wake is an International Trade Specialist in the Office of Trade of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. She specializes in U.S. trade law enforcement policy and investigative research on labor trafficking and forced labor in supply chains. She has worked extensively with various stakeholders for a whole-of-government approach for law enforcement against forced labor.

Cai Xia is a Chinese dissident and scholar of political theory. She was a member of the People’s Liberation Army (1969-1978) and member Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (1982-2020). Additionally, she was a Professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party (1998-2012) where she taught high-ranking members and officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including leading provincial and municipal administrators and cabinet-level ministers. During her time in academia, she often appeared in the Chinese news media. In the 2000s, she started becoming disillusioned with the CCP, and began writing criticisms of certain CCP actions. In 2020, her criticisms of the CCP and Xi Jinping lead to her expulsion from the CCP. She has written for Radio Free Asia and Foreign Affairs, and has been interviewed by The Economist, CNN, and the New York Times. She has been living in the US since 2019.

Dr. Adrian Zenz is Director and Senior Fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C. (non-resident). His research focus is on China’s ethnic policy, Beijing’s campaign of mass internment, securitization and forced labor in Xinjiang, public recruitment and coercive poverty alleviation in Tibet and Xinjiang, and China’s domestic security budgets. Dr. Zenz is the author of Tibetanness under Threat and co-editor of Mapping Amdo: Dynamics of Change. He has played a leading role in the analysis of leaked Chinese government documents, including the “China Cables,” the “Karakax List,” the “Xinjiang Papers,” and the “Xinjiang Police Files” Dr. Zenz is an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and a frequent contributor to the international media. Dr. Zenz obtained his Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge. He conducted ethnographic fieldwork in western China in Chinese and regularly analyses original Chinese source material. Dr. Zenz has provided expert testimony to the governments of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. After the publication of his research on forced labor in cotton picking in Xinjiang, the U.S. government banned the import of goods made with cotton from that region. Following his research on population optimization and birth prevention, an independent Tribunal in the United Kingdom determined that China’s policies in the region constitute genocide. Dr. Zenz’s work on parent-child separation in Xinjiang prompted The Economist to feature this atrocity on its cover page and to refer to it as “a crime against humanity” that represents “the gravest example of a worldwide attack on human rights.” Dr. Zenz has acted as academic peer reviewer for a wide range of scholarly journals, including The China Journal, Asian Studies Review, International Security (Harvard University), China Perspectives, Central Asian Survey, the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Asian Ethnicity, China: An International Journal, the Journal of Chinese Political Science, Issues and Studies, and Development and Change. Dr. Zenz is a member of the Association of Asian Studies. He has published opinion pieces with Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Suisheng Zhao is Professor and Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. A founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, he is a member of the Board of Governors of the US Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations, a Research Associate at the Fairbanks Center for East Asian Research in Harvard University, and an honorary jianzhi professor at Beijing University, Renmin University, China University of International Relations, Fudan University and Shanghai Foreign Studies University. A Campbell National Fellow at Hoover Institution of Stanford University, he was an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College in Maryland, an Associate Professor of Government and East Asian Politics at Colby College in Maine, and visiting assistant professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego. He received his Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of California-San Diego, his M.A. degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri, and BA and M.A. degrees in economics from Peking University. He is the author and editor of more than ten books, including China and East Asian Regionalism: Economic and Security Cooperation and Institution-Building (Routledge 2012), In Search of China’s Development Model: Beyond the Beijing Consensus, (Routledge 2011), and Village Elections in China (Routledge, 2010). His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, The Wilson Quarterly, Washington Quarterly, International Politik, The Hague Journal of Democracy, European Financial Review, The China Quarterly, World Affairs, Asian Survey, Asian Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Pacific Affairs, Communism and Post-Communism Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, and elsewhere.

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Sareta Ashraph is a barrister specialised in international criminal and humanitarian law. She is currently a Senior Legal Consultant on projects directed towards furthering accountability efforts for crimes committed in Syria and Iraq, and a Visiting Fellow with the Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict group at the Blavatnik School of Government. Until August 2019, Sareta was based in Iraq as the Senior Analyst on UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh. In 2017, Sareta was part of the start-up team of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (Syria IIIM). From May 2012 to November 2016, she served as the Chief Legal Analyst on the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria. In 2011 to 2012, Sareta served as the Analyst on the Commission of Inquiry on Libya, examining allegations of violations of international law by pro-Qadhafi forces, anti-Qadhafi forces, and NATO. In 2010 and 2011, Sareta was the Legal Adviser to the ICC’s Defence Office. From 2004 to 2009, Sareta was Defence Co-Counsel before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Sareta is an associate member of Garden Court Chambers (London), and is called to the Bar of England and Wales, as well as the Bar of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Karina Lipsman is the Director of Government Relations for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and leads VOC’s engagement with U.S. federal and state policymakers, embassies, and advocacy initiatives with human rights allies and captive nations constituencies.

Born in Odesa, Ukraine, Karina was the only Ukrainian refugee immigrant in the country to run for Congress in the 2022 election. She has a 14-year background in the defense and intelligence industry and is highly respected as an advocate and spokesperson for this field by political pundits, media, business leaders, and elected officials.

Karina currently serves on the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Council and Virginia Conservative Women’s Coalition Advisory Board. She is also a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and her expert commentary has been featured on Fox News, Washington Times, Daily Caller, RealClearPolicy, Washington Examiner, and more. Most recently Karina was the Corporate Strategy Development lead at Peraton, and prior to that served as a Senior Strategist at Northrop Grumman. She holds a Master of Science in Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Towson University.

Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding is Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum. She has served as a VOC Trustee since 2018.

As Founding Director, Dr. Spalding was instrumental in the establishment of the Victims of Communism Museum, overseeing the extensive research, writing, and execution of the entire project. A third-generation anticommunist, she has devoted her career to scholarship and education about the history and horrors of communism.

Dr. Spalding teaches subjects ranging from U.S. foreign policy, national security, and international relations to the presidency, religion, and politics as Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and Visiting Fellow at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, and previously taught at Claremont McKenna College, George Mason University, and the Catholic University of America. A frequent public lecturer on numerous topics, especially communism and the Cold War, she is also a core faculty member in VOC’s National Seminar for Middle and High School Educators. She is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War. Her scholarly and popular articles and reviews have been published widely, including in Journal of Church and State, Orbis, The Wilson Quarterly, Providence, The American Mind, Law & Liberty, H-Diplo, and Claremont Review of Books.

Dr. Spalding holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in international politics and political theory from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in politics from Hillsdale College. She lives with her family in Arlington, Virginia.

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post and a political analyst with CNN. He is also the author of Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century, released March, 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcout. Previously, Josh has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. His work has been featured on outlets including NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, NPR, and many more. Josh has been recognized with the Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting and as a Finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He has also received journalism fellowships from the Knight Foundation, the East-West Center, and the National Press Foundation. Josh holds a BA in international affairs from the George Washington University and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Ali Rogin of the PBS News Hour. 

Kelley E. Currie is a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is also a founding partner of Kilo Alpha Strategies, a boutique geopolitical advisory firm. In addition, she currently serves as a senior advisor to the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University and as a member of the board of directors of the National Endowment for Democracy, the board of governors of the East-West Center, and the advisory boards of Spirit of America and the Vandenberg Coalition. Throughout her career in foreign policy, Currie has specialized in human rights, political reform, development, and humanitarian issues, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific. Currie was unanimously confirmed in 2017 as the US representative to the United Nations (UN) Economic and Social Council and as the alternative representative to the UN General Assembly. In December 2019, she was appointed the US ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues and US representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women—she served in that position until January 2021. Prior to returning to government service, Currie was a senior fellow at the Project 2049 Institute from 2009 to 2017, where she founded the Burma Transition Initiative and focused on nontraditional security in Asia. She holds a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law School and a bachelor of arts from the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.

Jude Blanchette holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Previously, he was engagement director at the Conference Board’s China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing, where he researched China’s political environment with a focus on the workings of the Communist Party of China and its impact on foreign companies and investors. Prior to working at the Conference Board, Blanchette was the assistant director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego. Blanchette has written for a range of publications, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, War on the Rocks, the Financial Times, and the Washington Post. His book, China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Blanchette is a public intellectual fellow at the National Committee on United States-China Relations and serves on the board of the American Mandarin Society. He holds an MA in modern Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in economics from Loyola University in Maryland. 

Naomi Kikoler is the director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. As the Center’s deputy director she led Center’s policy engagement with the United States government and work on Bearing Witness countries, including undertaking the documentation of the commission of genocide by ISIS. Previously she developed and implemented the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect’s work on populations at risk and efforts to advance R2P globally and led the Centre’s advocacy, including targeting the United Nations Security Council. Prior to joining the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect in 2008, she worked on national security and refugee law and policy for Amnesty International Canada. She has also worked for the UN Office of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, the Office of the Prosecutor at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution, and she worked as an election monitor in Kenya with the Carter Center. She has been an adjunct professor at the New School University and is the author of numerous publications, including the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 2015 report, Our Generation is Gone: The Islamic State’s Targeting of Minorities in Ninewa, the 2013 Nexus Fund series on the emerging powers and mass atrocity prevention, and the 2011 report Risk Factors and Legal Norms Associated with Genocide Prevention for the UN Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Jacob Blaustein Institute. She is a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Law, Oxford University, where her masters thesis was on the Rwandan genocide, and the University of Toronto. She is a board member of the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, the Free Yezidi Foundation, is a Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and was called to the Bar of Upper Canada.

Rodney Dixon KC has a diverse practice in the UK and globally in international law, public law, inquiries, compliance and regulation, and human rights. He appears on behalf of Governments, serving and former Heads of State, politicians, military commanders, individual complainants and defendants, international organisations, companies and businesses, NGOs, and victim groups. He specialises in public international law, international criminal law, and human rights and civil liberties before all international, regional and national courts. Rodney’s expertise lies in cases concerning foreign relations, inter-State disputes, the armed forces, international prosecutions and defence, public inquiries, civil claims with international components, mediation and arbitration, cross-border proceedings, asset recovery, extradition and mutual assistance. His work covers all international criminal courts; UN proceedings, claims, and special procedures; actions before the International Court of Justice (ICJ); cases at the European Court of Human Rights; applications before the African Commission and African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights; Privy Council cases; bilateral investment treaty matters; territorial and border disputes; public inquiries and investigations; World Bank Sanctions Board proceedings; land claims and reparations; corporate compliance and regulation; detentions abroad; Universal Jurisdiction cases in multiple countries; Interpol and international and European arrest warrants; and, private international law cases.

Michael Polak represents clients in the most high profile and important cases before international courts, United Nations bodies, in human rights related arbitrations, in proceedings around the world, and before the courts of England and Wales. Michael’s work covers public international law, international crime, human rights, fraud, private prosecutions, strategic litigation, and serious criminal offences. Michael’s work often has an international element, and he was awarded the prestigious International Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer in 2021. This award is given to one young lawyer every year in recognition of their ‘excellence in their work and achievements in their career to date, but also a commitment to professional and ethical standards as well as a commitment to the larger community.’ Michael was recognised as the most outstanding young lawyer in the world for his ‘commitment to defending human rights across the globe through his professional practice and personal endeavours’. Examples of Michael’s recent work include the bringing of a case against Chinese regime leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity before the Courts of Argentina.