About Us

Grace Jin Drexel

Grace Jin Drexel is the daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin, founding pastor of Zion Church in China. On October 10, Pastor Ezra Jin was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party.

Craig Singleton

With nearly two decades of experience in national security and U.S.-China relations, Craig Singleton is an expert in geopolitical strategy and East Asian affairs. A former U.S. diplomat, he worked on critical national security issues related to China, North Korea, and the Indo-Pacific, with a particular emphasis on emerging technologies like AI and China’s military-civil fusion strategy. Currently serving as senior director for China and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Craig is a prolific author and strategist. He regularly publishes influential research on China’s military expansion, influence operations, and technological threats, often featured in leading outlets like The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The Wall Street Journal. He also works closely with U.S. policymakers, testifying before Congress on national security issues, including TikTok’s security risks, Chinese economic warfare, and cyber threats to U.S. infrastructure. Craig holds a Master of International Policy degree from the Bush School at Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Florida. He is also a lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on Chinese grand strategy.

Frances Hui

Frances Hui is the Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and the Founder and Executive Director of We The Hongkongers. Based in Washington, D.C., she leads policy advocacy and research on Hong Kong and China, focusing on the rule of law, political prisoners, accountability mechanisms, human rights, and grassroots organizing. Hui began her activism at the age of 14, serving as a standing committee member of Scholarism and campaigning for multiple pro‑democracy candidates in Hong Kong. During the 2019–2020 protests, she organized global solidarity efforts in support of freedom and democracy in the city. Following the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020, she sought asylum in the United States and became the first Hong Kong activist to be granted asylum there. In December 2023, the Hong Kong authorities placed a HK$1 million bounty on her under accusations of “colluding with foreign forces” pursuant to the National Security Law.

Adam King

Adam King is IRI’s Director of China Programs. During his more than 15 years at IRI he has worked with partners across the Asia-Pacific to implement programs focused on civil society strengthening, political party capacity, elections, media freedom, migrant worker rights, public budgeting, youth civic activism, women’s political participation, religious freedom, and many others. He has also observed elections in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Timor-Leste. During his professional career Adam also worked at a nonprofit organization focused on individual and family philanthropy across the Asia-Pacific and spent time at a technology startup in Munich, Germany. He has lived in Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, and Singapore; speaks Mandarin Chinese and German; has been sanctioned by the Chinese government; and has a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University.

Damon Wilson

Damon Wilson is President and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an independent, nonprofit, grant-making foundation supporting freedom around the world.

Prior to joining the Endowment, he helped transform the Atlantic Council into a leading global think tank as its executive vice president. Previously, Wilson served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council helping to enlarge a Europe whole, free, and at peace; to secure freedom through NATO enlargement; to deter and counter Russian aggression; and to work with a united Europe as a leading U.S. partner to support democracy in the world.

Samir Goswami

Samir Goswami has 20+ years of experience advancing human rights, labour rights, and social and economic justice across government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors. He currently directs forced labor programs at Global Rights Compliance, focusing on critical mineral supply chains and Uyghur forced labor. Previously, as an appointee for the Biden-Harris Administration he served as a Deputy Assistant Administrator at USAID on an executive team that oversaw $1.8B in resources. He instituted supply chain reforms for the Agency’s $150M ICT supply chain and utilized AI and machine learning to uncover and mitigate suppliers’ connections to forced labour in XUAR. He oversaw compliance and strengthened accountability systems and expanded the Bureau’s contracting opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses, contributing to over $1B in USAID small business utilization in 2024. He also served as COO of the Partnership on AI, forging collaborations between tech companies, labour unions, and civil society to advance responsible technology. He has directed multi-million-dollar global programs and managed and mentored teams across the globe.

Ambassador Sam Brownback

Sam Brownback served as Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom from February 2018 to January 2021. He served as Governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. Prior to that he represented his home state in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. While a member of the Senate, he worked actively on the issue of religious freedom in multiple countries and was a key sponsor of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Prior to his public service, Ambassador Brownback practiced law and taught agricultural law at Kansas State University. Ambassador Brownback currently serves as co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit and chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom. The Chinese government banned him from the country in 2020 in retaliation for US sanctions on Chinese officials.

Brian Hoxie

Brian is the director of the Forced Labor Division within the Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate (TRLED) at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Trade where he leads a team to conduct forced labor investigations and enforce the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Prior to his current position, Brian was the director of CBP’s Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigations of anti-dumping and countervailing duty evasion and managed its e-Allegation program. Prior to joining the Office of Trade, Brian served in several roles providing planning and risk analysis support for CBP’s trade, global engagement, and border security missions. Before coming to CBP, Brian worked at DHS Headquarters on border security planning and cargo and transportation security. He also worked as a budget examiner at the Office of Management and Budget during the 2016 federal budget cycle.

Brian holds a Master of Public Administration and a Master of International Studies from the University of Washington, completed graduate work in Customs & International Trade from the University of Texas, and has undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Computer Science from the University of Washington

Edward Lemon

Edward Lemon is President of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs. His research focuses on the global dynamics of authoritarianism, in particular transnational repression. He is co-author of the book Backlash: China’s Struggle for Influence in Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2025). His research on transnational repression has been published by Globalizations, Journal of Democracy, European Journal of International Security, Political Research Exchange and Diaspora.

Peter Mattis

Peter Mattis is President of The Jamestown Foundation. He previously served as Senator Marco Rubio’s staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China from 2019 to 2021, where he was part of the legislative team that passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, Tibetan Policy and Support Act, and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Mr. Mattis has been analyzing the Chinese Communist Party, and its political warfare and intelligence activities for nearly two decades, and is the author of Analyzing the China Military: A Review Essay and Resource Guide on the People’s Liberation Army and co-author of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer. He began his career as a counterintelligence analyst at CIA and most recently served as a senior fellow with the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party while on loan from the Special Competitive Studies Project, where he was Director for Intelligence.

Judy Gearhart

Judy Gearhart is a research professor with the Accountability Research Center (ARC) at American University where she leads programs on corporate accountability and workers’ rights. During her ten years as the executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), she helped grow the successful Cotton Campaign to end forced and child labor in Uzbekistan and oversaw extensive worker training programs in China. Prior to ILRF, she was the programs director at Social Accountability International (SAI) where she led the consensus-based drafting of the SA8000 standard and guidance for social auditors and developed training for factory managers and workers in a dozen countries, including China. Gearhart started as an organizer in Mexico and has worked for multiple grassroots advocacy organizations, UNICEF, and the International Labour Organization. She teaches Business, Human Rights, and Ocean Sustainability at American University and co-teaches Human Rights and the Politics of Inequality at Columbia University. Her writing and public speaking has covered transnational advocacy campaigns, women’s rights, trade policy, labor rights, and democracy. Her podcast and recent publications are available here: https://accountabilityresearch.org/corporate-accountability-worker-rights/

Yaqiu Wang

Yaqiu Wang is a Chinese human rights researcher and advocate. Currently, Wang is a Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, where she focuses on freedom of expression issues affecting people in China, as well as Chinese communities in the United States and other parts of the world. Previously, Wang was Director for China Research at Freedom House, where she led the organization’s research on human rights issues within China and the Chinese government’s global authoritarian overreach. Before that, Wang was a Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, and Asia researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yaqiu Wang has written extensively on the Chinese government’s efforts to undermine democratic norms globally, including through transnational repression, encroachment on the UN human rights system, and the export of surveillance technologies. In addition to research, she conducts advocacy with government officials and elected politicians to promote laws and policies that address Beijing’s human rights abuses. She has testified before the US Congress a number of times and the Australian Parliament. Her articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The Atlantic and is frequently quoted by major news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and have appeared on CNN, BBC and others.

Anna Kwok

Anna Kwok is the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), a leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and Hong Kongers in the United States. Under her leadership, HKDC advances Hong Kongers’ fight for basic human rights by fostering a coherent and collaborative community overseas. This is done through its three pillars of work: policy advocacy, diaspora empowerment, and research and education. HKDC actively monitors and documents the plight of political prisoners, as well as the Hong Kong government’s attempts to influence American businesses and foreign policy. HKDC is sanctioned and censored by the PRC and HKSAR governments.

During Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, Kwok was an anonymous activist behind major international campaigns. From urging global leaders to “Stand With Hong Kong” at the G20 Summit through a widely publicized global newspaper ad campaign to broadcasting real-time police locations for on-the-ground protesters, Kwok’s experience epitomizes how Hong Kongers around the world took part in a global, grassroots, decentralized movement.

In 2022, two years after the enactment of the National Security Law, Kwok decided to publicize her identity and personal story against the tides of widespread fear among Hong Kongers abroad. Since then, she has continued her work advocating for Hong Kong despite being repeatedly threatened by the HKSAR government, which has issued a warrant for her arrest and placed a HK$1 million bounty on her head. Her commitment to continue her work in the face of continued repression affirms Hong Kongers’ determination to fight for freedom and democracy everywhere.

Anna has testified before the U.S. Congress and has been interviewed and quoted by BBC, New York Times, Nikkei Asia, NPR, The Economist, The Guardian, Reuters, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America among other outlets.

Rev. Bob Fu

Rev. Bob Fu, Ph.D., is a leading advocate for persecuted believers and human rights in China, and the founder/president of China Aid (est. 2002), an international NGO promoting religious freedom and rule of law in China. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Freedom from Durham University, UK. His autobiography, God’s Double Agent (2013), and academic book, The Politics of Inclusive Pluralism (2021), highlight his expertise. As China Aid’s leader, Fu has testified before the U.S. Congress, UN, and parliaments in the UK, Netherlands, and Taiwan. He is a life member of Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Senior Fellow at Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council. Bob and his wife Heidi have three adult children.

Tsultrim Gyatso

Tsultrim Gyatso was born in Tibet and escaped to India when he was thirteen years old. He received his primary education in Tibet and India. After immigrating to the United States, he continued his education in New York City and graduated from Baruch College, City University of New York. Tsultrim has been active in promoting youth involvement in the Tibetan Movement and engagement in Sino-Tibetan dialogue. He is currently serving as the China Director at the Office of Tibet, Washington, DC and extending his tasks in youth outreach and government relations.

Murphy

Laura T. Murphy is currently a Professor of Human Rights in the UK, a fellow at the Harvard Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, and Senior Associate in the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Under the Biden Administration, she served as a senior policy advisor at the Department of Homeland Security, leading the department’s implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. She has published numerous white papers on forced labor in the Uyghur Region, tracing the supply chains of goods made in the region across a wide range of industries.

Ros-Lehtinen

A native of Cuba, former U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) served for almost three decades as a Member of Congress representing diverse areas in South Florida. She was the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In these roles, she led on pressing foreign policy issues, including championing the advancement of freedom and democracy for all, fighting Islamist extremism; supporting free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea; and imposing sanctions on human rights violators in Venezuela. Her record over nearly four decades of public service includes fighting against tyranny and oppression, particularly in her native homeland of Cuba, as well as working diligently to support and strengthen the US – Israel strategic partnership.

During Ros-Lehtinen’s tenure in Congress, she worked to ensure that all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity were treated and protected equally under the law. She was a founding member of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus as well as the Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus. She was the lead Republican member on the Respect for Marriage Act to repeal DOMA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Every Child Deserves a Family Act, Restore Honor to Service Members Act, and the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen holds multiple education degrees, including a doctorate from the University of Miami, Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Florida International University, and an Associate’s degree from Miami Dade College. She began her career as a Florida certified teacher, and then founded, and served as the principal of a private bilingual elementary school.

She was the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress, as well as to the State of Florida House of Representatives and Senate. She is married to Dexter Lehtinen, former US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and a decorated Vietnam combat veteran. They have four adult children and nine grandchildren.

Conor Healy

Conor Healy leads IPVM’s research on governments’ use and regulation of surveillance, computer vision, and related technologies. His investigations of Chinese mass surveillance manufacturers and infrastructure have contributed significantly to public understanding of how China’s government deploys invasive monitoring against citizens, particularly in Xinjiang. A peer-reviewed author, Healy‘s work is frequently cited in major media outlets and government reports and, in December 2024, he was sanctioned by the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Healy studied government at Harvard University.

Rush Doshi

Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also an assistant professor in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. His expertise includes China’s foreign policy, U.S. strategy toward China, cross-strait issues, and Indo-Pacific security.

Before joining CFR, Doshi was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan at the National Security Council (NSC), where he served from 2021 to 2024 and helped manage the NSC’s first China directorate. During his tenure, Doshi coordinated U.S. government policy on China and Taiwan, drafted the administration’s China strategy, and negotiated with PRC Counterparts.

He is the author of The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021). Doshi received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in public policy and his PhD from Harvard University focusing on Chinese foreign policy

Josh Rogin

Josh Rogin is Lead Global Security Analyst at Washington Post Intelligence. Since 2016, Josh has served as a columnist for the Global Opinions section of the Washington Post. He is also the author of Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century (Mariner Books).

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. 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

Katrina Lantos Swett, Ph.D.

Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett serves as President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, established in 2008 to continue the legacy of her father, the late Congressman Tom Lantos, who served as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the US Congress.

Under her leadership, the Lantos Foundation has become a distinguished and respected voice on key human rights concerns ranging from advancing rule of law and freedom of religion and belief globally, to fighting for Internet freedom in closed societies, to combating the persistent and growing threat of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

Dr. Lantos Swett is the former Chair and Vice Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and teaches Human Rights and American Foreign Policy at Tufts University. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the Board of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and the Budapest based Tom Lantos Institute. Dr. Lantos Swett also serves on the Advisory Board of UN Watch, the annual Anne Frank Award and Lecture, and the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Policy. She serves as Co-Chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit, which held its inaugural gathering in 2021.

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, Ph.D.

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, a foreign policy expert and diplomat specializing in national security affairs, is Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs. She brings over 30 years of government and international experience across senior levels of diplomacy, business, and defense.

She was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters and held the Distinguished National Security Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her high-level government positions include Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, President’s Envoy to Northern Ireland, President Reagan’s National Security Council Director of European and Soviet Affairs, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy, Dobriansky also served on the Defense Policy Board, the Secretary of State’s Foreign Policy Board and as Chair of ExIm Bank’s Council on China Competition.

She has a BSFS summa cum laude from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and an MA and Ph.D. in Soviet political/military affairs from Harvard University. She has received high-level international recognition from the governments of Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania and Colombia and has five Honorary Doctorate degrees.

She is a Trustee of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and recipient of the Foundation’s Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2008. Her father, the Honorable Lev E. Dobriansky, was a Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Frank Dikötter, Ph.D.

Frank Dikötter is Milias Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He has published a dozen books and over 65 refereed articles and chapters in books that have changed the way we look at the history of modern China. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. His Mao’s Great Famine won the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2011. He holds an honorary doctorate from Leiden University.

Mike Gallagher

Mr. Gallagher is Head of Defense for Palantir Technologies and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. He represented Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District (2017-24) and was chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation, and a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. From 2019 to 2021, he served as Co-Chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

Ambassador Mark Green

Ambassador Mark Green is President and CEO of The Wilson Center and author of the “Stubborn Things” blog. Ambassador Green served as Administrator of the US Agency for International Development from 2017 to 2020. Before that he served as President of the International Republican Institute, one of the world’s leading democracy promotion organizations. Green served as the US Ambassador to Tanzania from mid-2007 to early 2009, as well as four terms in the US House of Representatives representing Wisconsin’s 8th District. He has also served as Executive Director of the McCain Institute, President of the Initiative for Global Development, and Senior Director at the US Global Leadership Coalition. Green has also served on the MCC’s Board of Directors during both the Obama and Trump Administrations, on the Bush Institute’s Human Freedom Advisory Council, and on the Board of Consensus for Development Reform. He has received special honors from President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and President Ivan Duque of Colombia, as well as an honorary Doctor of Science from Georgetown University

David Hampton

David Hampton is a Deputy Executive Director assigned to the Office of Trade, Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing several programs focused on detecting high-risk activity, deterring trade non-compliance, and disrupting fraudulent behavior and illicit activity. These programs enforce various U.S. trade laws responsible for leveling the playing field of American businesses, protecting the U.S. economy from the effects of unfair trade practices, and safeguarding U.S. consumers from illicit goods that could pose a threat to health and safety. Prior to joining the Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, he served as the acting Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of Trade where he oversaw the administration and daily operations of the Executive Assistant Commissioner’s office since July 2020. Prior to his arrival to the Office of Trade, he served in the CBP Office of Intergovernmental Liaison; Department of Homeland Security Office for Partnership Engagement; and Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.

Ambassador Morse Tan

Ambassador Morse Tan was appointed by President Trump to serve as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in December 2019, following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Ambassador Tan was serving as the youngest full Professor of Law at Northern Illinois University College of Law, where his areas of expertise included international criminal law, international human rights law, and constitutional law.

Ambassador Tan served as a Visiting Scholar at both the University of Texas Law School and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Ambassador Tan was a Founding Professor of the first American juris doctor program in Asia at Handong International Law School in South Korea. He completed the Emerging Leaders program of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and was selected as Korean-American of the Year by the Korean-American Society of Chicago.

Ambassador Tan wrote the book North Korea, International Law and the Dual Crises: Narrative and Constructive Engagement (Routledge) and has written a number of law review articles on subjects such as North Korea, international humanitarian law, and the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in journals at Cornell, University of Texas, and Yale.

A National Merit Scholar, Ambassador Tan earned his B.A. and M.A. from Wheaton College and J.D. from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law with a concentration in international law. He is fluent in Korean and Spanish, and accomplished in cello as well as tennis.

Michael Sobolik

Michael Sobolik is a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). Previously, he was a legislative assistant in the US Senate. Sobolik’s work at AFPC covers American and Chinese grand strategy, regional economic and security trends, America’s alliance architecture in Asia, and human rights.

His work covers American and Chinese grand strategy, regional economic and security trends, America’s alliance architecture in Asia, and human rights. Michael also hosts Great Power Podcast, AFPC’s show about great power competition and U.S.-China relations. He is also the author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance (Naval Institute Press, 2024). Michael’s analysis has appeared in the Washington Post, Reuters, Bloombereg, Foreign Policy, Politico, Newsweek, and Jane’s Defence Weekly.

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.

Congressional Testimony

May 16, 2024 | All Roads Lead to Beijing? The CCP’s Development Offensive | Testimony submitted to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party
May 18, 2022 | Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request of the Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs | Testimony before the House Committee on Natural Resources
September 28, 2021| Strengthening the U.S. Ties with Southeast Asia | Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation

Dr. Sophie Richardson

Sophie Richardson is a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the organization’s research and advocacy. She has published extensively on human rights, and testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China’s foreign policy since 1954’s Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers. She speaks Mandarin, and received her doctorate from the University of Virginia and her BA from Oberlin College. Her current research focuses on the global implications of democracies’ weak responses to increasingly repressive Chinese governments, and she is advising several China-focused human rights organizations.

Danica Damplo

Danica Damplo is the Policy Manager for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Before joining the Center, she served as a Program Manager at Interpeace, an international peacebuilding organization, and as head of the New York Office of Universal Rights Group, a human rights think tank. Previously, Danica worked in the Office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees for Non-Recurrence. Danica has a Msc. in International Affairs from the London School of Economics (LSE), a Msc in International Affairs from Peking University (PKU), and holds a BA in Political Science and History from Columbia University.

David Feith

David Feith served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Before that, he was an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

At the Department of State from 2017 to 2021, David helped create the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and reorient U.S. policy toward China and Asia generally. As Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, he oversaw the Offices of Multilateral Affairs and Regional and Security Policy, with responsibility for South China Sea policy, relations with the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), security cooperation, foreign assistance programming, and budgeting. He regularly represented the State Department in the interagency policy process, official multilateral forums, and other international meetings.

From 2017 to 2019, David served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, advising on relations with China and countries across the Indo-Pacific region, for which he received a Superior Honor Award. In this capacity he helped launch the Indo-Pacific Business Forum and establish a range of initiatives focused on great-power competition, strengthening alliances and partnerships, and commercial diplomacy.

At The Wall Street Journal, David was based in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2017, writing editorials on Asian economic and political affairs, and was earlier an op-ed editor for three years in New York. He also worked as an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs magazine.

David has consulted for the U.S. Air Force and published a book entitled Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education. He has a B.A. in history from Columbia University.

Eric Choy

Eric Choy serves as the Executive Director for Trade Remedy and Law Enforcement at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where he is responsible for threat assessment units, special investigations and enforcement programs focused on detecting, deterring, and disrupting illicit trade, with special emphasis on Forced Labor violations, evasion of special tariff cases, and civil penalties.

Previously, Eric was the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade at the Department of Homeland Security responsible for policies and initiatives that enable the flow of legitimate trade, services, capital, and technology across our Nation’s borders to protect the economy and assure a fair, competitive, and safe trade environment.

Prior to CBP, he led the Chemical Sector Specific Agency at the Department of Homeland Security. In this role, he oversaw the development and implementation of the sector’s partnership engagement strategy with regulatory stakeholders and industry partners as part of the national effort to strengthen the security and resilience of the nation’s Chemical industry.

Before his arrival at the Department, he served 23 years in the United States Army in numerous field and joint duty assignments in and outside of the Pentagon and around the world in Southwest Asia, Asia-Pacific, and North America.

He received his Master of Arts from the United States Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and Master of Business Administration from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Mihrigul Tursun

Mihrigul Tursun is an Uyghur survivor of China’s modern-day concentration camps. She is a first-hand witness of the human rights atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party. Since Tursun left her homeland, she has exposed the ongoing crimes against millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. Tursun also authored a memoir about her captivity, titled “Place of No Return.”

Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI)

Congressman John Moolenaar represents the hardworking residents of Michigan’s Second Congressional District, and currently serves as Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party

As Michigan’s senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations, Moolenaar is dedicated to holding the federal government accountable to taxpayers. He strongly believes in fiscal responsibility and has been fighting to make the economy work for Michigan families and seniors. As a member of the committee, he serves on the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, and the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. During his time in Congress, Congressman Moolenaar has focused on improving the lives of the Michiganders. He has introduced legislation to hold the VA accountable to our veterans; to help rural residents get better internet; and to improve the quality-of-care seniors are receiving.

Along with Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Congressman Moolenaar serves as the Co-Chair for the School Choice Caucus, and as a parent, Moolenaar is proud to stand in support of parental rights and school choice in Michigan and across America.

Moolenaar brings years of leadership experience in the private and public sectors to Congress. He began his career as a chemist, after graduating from Hope College with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. Moolenaar then worked in business development, and as a school administrator. Moolenaar has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University. From 2003-2008, he served in the Michigan House of Representatives, and in the Michigan State Senate from 2011-2015.

Adiljan Abdurihim

Adiljan Abdurihim is the lead engineer on the 3D imagery used in All Static & Noise. He is originally from East Turkestan and now resides in Norway where he works as a software developer for a technology company. He co-founded and additionally works as a project coordinator at the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database (UTJD). He also serves as secretary for the Norwegian Uyghur Committee. Adiljan holds a bachelor’s degree in software development and a master’s degree in applied computer science from Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Gjøvik, Norway.

Liza Tobin

Liza Tobin is the senior director of research and analysis for economy at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP). Before joining SCSP, she served on the National Security Council staff as China director, where she led the development of multiple US strategies and policies related to China, including on trade and economics, climate and the environment, military issues, and China’s influence beyond the Indo-Pacific. Before serving at the National Security Council, Ms. Tobin worked for more than a decade in various capacities as a China specialist for the US government, including as a senior adviser at the US Indo-Pacific Command and an economic analyst at the CIA, and in various roles in the private sector and academia. She holds an MA in international relations with concentrations in China studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a graduate certificate from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and a BA in China studies and biblical studies from Gordon College.

David Shambaugh

David Shambaugh is an internationally recognized authority and award-winning author on contemporary China and the international relations of Asia. He is the Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs, and the founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Professor Shambaugh previously served in the Department of State and on the National Security Council staff during the Carter administration (1977- 1979), was also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution from 1996-2016. Prior to joining the Elliott School and GWU faculty he was a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader in Chinese Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) from 1987-1996, where he also served as Editor of the prestigious journal The China Quarterly. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Advisory Board of the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), East-West Center Fellowship Board, is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and member of its Board of Studies, has been a participant in the Aspen Strategy Group, the Asia Society Task Force on U.S. China Policy, and other public policy and scholarly organizations. An active public intellectual and frequent commentator in the international media, he also serves on numerous editorial boards, and has been a consultant to governments, research institutions, foundations, universities, corporations, banks, and investment funds.

Professor Shambaugh has been selected for numerous awards and grants, including as a Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Senior Fulbright Scholar (in residence at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). He has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, German Marshall Fund, Hinrich Foundation, the British Academy, and U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He has also been a visiting scholar or professor at universities in Australia, China, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, and he has lectured all over the world.

As an author, Professor Shambaugh has published 35 books, including China’s Leaders: From Mao to Now (second edition, 2023); International Relations of Asia (third edition, 2022); Where Great Powers Meet: America & China in Southeast Asia (2021); and China & the World (2020). Other books include The China Reader: Rising Power (2016); Tangled Titans: The United States and China (2012); China’s Communist Party: Atrophy & Adaptation (2008); Power Shift: China & Asia’s New Dynamics (2005); and Modernizing China’s Military (2002); Making China Policy (2001); The Modern Chinese State (2000); Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory & Practice (1994); American Studies of Contemporary China (1993); and Beautiful Imperialist (1991). He has also authored numerous reports, scholarly articles and chapters, newspaper op-eds, and book reviews.

Martin Dimitrov

Martin K. Dimitrov is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University. He is also an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard; Associate Editor for Asia of the journal Problems of Post-Communism; and Associate Editor for Social Science (China and Eurasia) of The Journal of Asian Studies. His books include Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Why Communism Did Not Collapse: Understanding Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Asia and Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Politics of Socialist Consumption (Ciela Publishers, 2018); and Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China (Oxford University Press, 2022). He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2004 and has held residential fellowships at the University of Helsinki, as well as at Harvard (Davis Center and Fairbank Center), Princeton, Notre Dame, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2012, he received the Berlin Prize and Axel Springer Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin. His work has also been supported with grants from the Social Science Research Council (the International Pre-Dissertation Fellowship Program), the Association for Asian Studies (the China and Inner Asia Council), and the Board of Regents Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) Program. At Tulane, he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching in 2020. He is currently completing a book entitled Welfare Dictatorships and an edited volume entitled China-Cuba: Trajectories of Post-Revolutionary Governance. He has conducted fieldwork in China, Taiwan, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, and Cuba.

Ambassador Stephen J. Rapp

Stephen Rapp is Chair of CIJA’s Board of Commissioners. He is also Senior Visiting Fellow of Practice with the Blavatnik School’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict’s Programme on International Peace and Security. At the Blavatnik School, he is co-leading a new research and stakeholder consultation project to develop policy proposals to strengthen global capacity to gather and preserve evidence of criminal responsibility of the most serious violations of human rights. He also currently serves as Distinguished Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Prevention of Genocide.

From 2009 to 2015, he was Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department. During his tenure, he travelled more than 1.5 million miles to 87 countries to engage with victims, civil society organisations, investigators and prosecutors, and the leaders of governments and international bodies to further efforts to bring the perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice.

Ambassador Rapp was the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009, where he led the prosecution of former Liberian President Charles Taylor. From 2001 to 2007, he served as Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history of leaders of the mass media for the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

Before becoming an international prosecutor, he was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa from 1993 to 2001. He received a BA degree from Harvard, a JD degree from Drake, and several honorary degrees from US universities in recognition of his work for international criminal justice.

Randall G. Schriver

Mr. Randall Schriver is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs. Mr. Schriver was appointed as Assistant Secretary of Defense by President Donald Trump on 8 January 2018.

Prior to his confirmation, Mr. Schriver was one of five founding partners of Armitage International LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in international business development and strategies. He was also CEO and President of the Project 2049 Institute, a non-profit research organization dedicated to the study of security trend lines in Asia.

Previously, Mr. Schriver served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He was responsible for China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. From 2001 to 2003, he served as Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State. From 1994 to 1998, he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, including as the senior official responsible for the day-to-day management of U.S. bilateral relations with the People’s Liberation Army and the bilateral security and military relationships with Taiwan.

Prior to his civilian service, he served as an active duty Navy Intelligence Officer from 1989 to 1991, including a deployment in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. After active duty, he served in the Navy Reserves for nine years, including as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an attaché at U.S. Embassy Beijing and U.S. Embassy Ulaanbaatar.

Mr. Schriver has won numerous military and civilian awards from the U.S. government and was presented while at the State Department with the Order of the Propitious Clouds by the President of Taiwan for service promoting U.S.-Taiwan relations. Mr. Schriver received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Williams College and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University.

David Novack

David Novack directed, wrote, and produced the new award-winning documentary film All Static & Noise (2023) about the contemporary Uyghur genocide in China. Prior to this, he made Finding Babel (Special Jury Prize, Moscow Jewish Film Festival), about executed Soviet writer Isaac Babel, and Burning The Future: Coal in America (IDA Pare Lorentz Award for social documentary, Best In-Depth Television Reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists) about rights activists in West Virginia. David also produced Kimjongilia (Sundance, Best Human Rights Documentary/One World Brussels FilmFest) about North Korean labor camps.

A former lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, David teaches sound and cinema at Lusófona University in Lisbon. With degrees in engineering (Penn) and music (Berklee) and a PhD in Media Arts/Sound (Lusófona), David has enjoyed an award-winning career in sound design and re-recording mixing for dozens of films. Highlights include Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine, Larry Clark’s Kids, and Whit Stillman’s Last Days of Disco. In live theater, David designed sound for an international opera by Roger Waters (Ça Ira), sound/projections for the Papp Theater’s presentation of Death of a Salesman in Yiddish, and most recently sound for a science-in-art international exhibition, Space Messengers, in Portugal.

Mr. Novack toured with Burning the Future to China and Ukraine with the American Documentary Showcase, sponsored by the US Department of State. With the program, Mr. Novack lectured extensively at universities and film festivals and was profiled in magazines and television programs.

Mr. Novack produced Kimjongilia, a documentary about N. Korean refugees that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and enjoyed a theatrical run at the International Documentary Association’s Docuweeks Theatrical Showcase. Kimjongilia aired in the US and abroad. The film won the 2010 best human rights documentary award from the One World Brussels Film Fest of the Human Rights and Democracy Network.

Dr. Alicia Hennig

Since 2020, Dr. Alicia Hennig is holding the position of deputy professorship at TU Dresden/IHI Zittau. Her research is centred on the accountability of foreign enterprises in Xinjiang. Prior to this, she was employed for five years at Chinese universities with high rankings. She provides support to several China-focused human rights NGOs in Germany on a voluntary basis, utilising her expertise. Her views and assessments on China have been published in various German print media, including Der Spiegel, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and China.Table. At the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, she is responsible for the content and moderation of a monthly web talk series on China.

Olivia Enos

Olivia Enos is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where she specializes in human rights and national security challenges in Asia. Ms. Enos also serves as an adjunct professor in the Democracy and Governance Program at Georgetown University, where she teaches a course on countering authoritarianism in Asia. Additionally, she has a regular column with Forbes, in which she writes on the intersection of human rights and national security challenges in Asia. She is also an adjunct fellow with Pacific Forum. Prior to joining Hudson, Ms. Enos served as the Washington director for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation (CFHK). She also previously worked at the Heritage Foundation, where she last served as a senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center advancing human rights and freedom in Asia. Ms. Enos received an MA in Asian studies from Georgetown University and a BA in government from Patrick Henry College.

Muetter Iliqud

Muetter Iliqud is a Uyghur academic activist with years of experience advocating against the prosecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Minorities in China. She is a researcher at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Muetter holds an LLM degree specializing in International Human Rights Law and Criminal Justice from the University of Kent. Prior to joining the VOC, she worked as a researcher at the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database and as a research fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, and the University of Sheffield. She participated in research projects on digital transnational repression, the mental impact of mass atrocities crimes on diaspora communities, and Uyghur forced labor in the global supply chains.

Dr. Eric Patterson

A foreign policy expert and long-time fighter of totalitarianism, Dr. Patterson previously served as President of the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), where he led the organization’s efforts to advocate for religious liberty around the world through training and educational programs for students, teachers, public officials, and other audiences. Prior to RFI, Dr. Patterson was a university dean and professor. His government experience includes service as a White House Fellow, at the U.S. Department of State, and, for over 20 years, as an Air National Guard commander. He is an active scholar on the moral dimensions of national security and international affairs, as well as author of over 20 books, including Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History and the co-edited volume The Reagan Manifesto: ‘A Time for Choosing’ and Its Influence.

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Lauren Baillie

Lauren Baillie is the senior program officer on atrocity prevention at USIP. She leads a program that explores the intersections between atrocity prevention and cross-cutting criminal justice reform issues, including countering violent extremism, combatting corruption and transnational organized crime, and promoting women, peace, and security. In partnership with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, she works to develop a comprehensive curriculum on atrocity prevention for practitioners in the justice and security sectors.

Baillie joined USIP after 10 years with the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), where she served most recently as vice president and senior counsel.

During her time with PILPG, she worked extensively on accountability and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict settings, including South Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Kosovo. Her expertise includes human rights documentation, design of responsive transitional justice mechanisms, women’s participation in peace and transitional justice processes, justice sector accountability, and strategic litigation as a tool to promote accountability. She has field experience in Libya, Kosovo, South Sudan, and Tanzania. Prior to PILPG, Baillie worked with the United States Agency for International Development and the Brookings Institution.

Baillie received her Juris Doctor from American University’s Washington College of Law, a master’s in international affairs from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and a bachelor’s in political science from Yale College.

Anastasia Lin

Anastasia Lin is an award-winning actress, beauty pageant titleholder, and human rights advocate. In 2015, Lin won the Miss World Canada title, and was to represent Canada at the Miss World pageant in China. However, she was refused a visa and declared a persona non grata by Chinese authorities for her outspoken views on the country’s human rights violations and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The news of her rejection—and subsequent attempt to enter China—caused global media attention for weeks, leading to a front page article in The New York Times and op-eds in major newspapers. Since then, she has been invited to speak at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, the Oxford Union, and the Geneva Human Rights Summit at the UN, Oslo Freedom Forum and has testified in the US Congress, the UK Parliament, and the Taiwanese Legislative Assembly.

Lin has appeared in over 20 films and television productions. She often works at the confluence of activism and acting, playing roles that carry messages of freedom, human rights, and ethics. Her films have received the Gabriel Award for Best Feature Film, the Mexico International Film Festival’s Golden Palm Award, and the California’s Indie Fest Award of Merit. Lin also won the Best Leading Actress in a TV Movie at the Leo Awards in 2016. As a model, she’s made appearances on runways around the world, including the New York Fashion Week show at the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria.

Lin has been listed as one of the “Top 25 under 25” by MTV, a “Top 60 under 30” by Flare, and called “The Badass Beauty Queen” by Marie Claire. She was one of eleven stakeholders selected to meet with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird upon the establishment of Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail, and other major newspapers.

James Feinerman

Professor Feinerman joined the Law Center faculty as a visiting professor for the 1985-86 academic year. Immediately after law school he studied in the People’s Republic of China. Subsequently, he joined the New York firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell as a corporate associate. During 1982-83, Professor Feinerman was Fulbright Lecturer on Law at Peking University. For the Spring semester 2006, he was Fulbright Distinguished Senior Lecturer on Law, Tsinghua University Law School, Peking, People’s Republic of China. In 1986, he was a Fulbright researcher in Japan. In 1989, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship to study China’s practice of international law. During the 1992-93 academic year, he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. From 1993-95, on leave from the Law Center, Professor Feinerman was the Director of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China. Professor Feinerman served as Editor-in-Chief of the ABA’s China Law Reporter from 1986-1998. He has twice served as Associate Dean for Graduate and International Programs: 2001-2005 and 2013-2020. Also, Professor Feinerman was the Co-editor of The Limits of the Rule of Law in China (2001), and Co-Author of China After the WTO: What You Need to Know Now (2001).

Brian Hoxie

Brian is the director of the Forced Labor Division within the Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate (TRLED) at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Trade where he leads a team to conduct forced labor investigations and enforce the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Prior to his current position, Brian was the director of CBP’s Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigations of anti-dumping and countervailing duty evasion and managed its e-Allegation program. Prior to joining the Office of Trade, Brian served in several roles providing planning and risk analysis support for CBP’s trade, global engagement, and border security missions. Before coming to CBP, Brian worked at DHS Headquarters on border security planning and cargo and transportation security. He also worked as a budget examiner at the Office of Management and Budget during the 2016 federal budget cycle. Brian holds a Master of Public Administration and a Master of International Studies from the University of Washington, completed graduate work in Customs & International Trade from the University of Texas, and has undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Computer Science from the University of Washington.

Elaine Dezenski

Elaine K. Dezenski serves as senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. With more than two decades of leadership in public, private, and international organizations, Elaine is a globally recognized expert and thought leader on geopolitical risk, supply chain security, anti-corruption, and national security. Elaine served as senior director at the World Economic Forum from 2010 to 2015, where she led the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative and launched the Forum’s Global Risk Response Network, a global platform designed to address a broad range of macro-level risks and their implications for business and society. Elaine launched LumiRisk LCC, a risk advisory practice, in 2015. In 2017, she served as a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University and as a lecturer of business ethics in Yale’s Program on Ethics, Politics, and Economics. In 2020–2021, she served on the newly formed Chairman’s Council on China Competition at the Export-Import Bank of the United States. She has held both political and career positions at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including deputy and acting assistant secretary for policy and director of cargo and trade policy. She has also held senior roles at INTERPOL, Cross Match Technologies, and Siemens Corporation. She is vice chair of Integrity Initiatives International, a non-governmental organization fighting grand corruption, and serves on the Transportation Security Administration’s Aviation Security Advisory Committee and as chair of its Air Cargo Security Subcommittee. Elaine holds an M.A. in public policy from Georgetown University and a B.A. in international relations from Wheaton College, Massachusetts.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi was elected to Congress in 2016 and is now in his fourth term representing Illinois’ 8th District, which includes Chicago’s west and northwest suburbs as well as the 41st ward of the city. He serves as Ranking Member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, making him the first South Asian American in history to lead a Congressional Committee. He also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Oversight and Accountability as a member of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs. The Congressman is a Vice-Chair of the Equality Caucus and Co-Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) Immigration Task Force. In addition, he is the founder and Chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus to End the Youth Vaping Epidemic and the bipartisan Solar Caucus. Representative Krishnamoorthi is the child of immigrants and was raised in Peoria, Illinois. He attended public schools in Peoria and was a valedictorian of his high school class. Scholarships and student loans allowed him to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in mechanical engineering and a certificate from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He then graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and clerked for a federal judge before practicing law in Chicago. Representative Krishnamoorthi pursued public service while practicing law and was appointed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan as a Special Assistant Attorney General to help start the state’s Public Integrity Unit created to root out corruption in Illinois. As a member of the Illinois Housing Development Authority, the Congressman chaired the Audit Committee, helping to provide thousands of low and moderate-income families across the state with affordable housing. Congressman Krishnamoorthi also served as Illinois Deputy Treasurer, where he oversaw the state’s technology venture capital fund and helped make programs such as the state’s unclaimed property program leaner and more efficient. After his time in the Illinois Treasurer’s Office, Representative Krishnamoorthi returned to the private sector, serving as president of research-oriented small businesses developing technology in the national security and renewable energy industries. Representative Krishnamoorthi also served as the Vice-Chair of the Illinois Innovation Council and co-founded InSPIRE, a non-profit that provides inner-city students and veterans with training in solar technology. The Congressman resides with his wife Priya, a physician, and 3 children in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Mary Kissel

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

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.

Louisa Greve

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

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.

Matthew Turpin

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.

Michael Polak

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.

Rodney Dixon KC

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.

Naomi Kikoler

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.

Jude Blanchette

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.

Ambassador Kelley Currie

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.

Josh Rogin

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.

Dr. Elizabeth Spalding

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.

Karina Lipsman

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.

Sareta Ashraph

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.

Matthew Pottinger

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and China Program Chairman at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Pottinger served the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, he coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. He previously served as senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, in particular its shift on China policy.

Before his White House service, Pottinger spent the late 1990s and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. He then fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a US Marine during three combat deployments between 2007 and 2010. Following active duty, he founded and led an Asia-focused risk consultancy and ran Asia research at an investment fund in New York.

Michael Pillsbury, Ph.D.

Dr. Michael Pillsbury is a senior fellow and director for Chinese strategy at Hudson Institute. He is a distinguished defense policy adviser, former high-ranking government official, and author of numerous books and reports on China. From 1969 to 1970, he was the Assistant Political Affairs

Officer at the United Nations. From 1971 to 1972, he was a doctoral dissertation Fellow for the National Science Foundation in Taiwan, and from 1973 to 1977, he was an analyst at the Social Science Department at RAND. In 1978, Dr. Pillsbury was a research fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. During the Reagan Administration, he was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and was responsible for the covert aid program known as the Reagan Doctrine. From 1975 to 1976, while an analyst at the RAND Corporation, he published articles in Foreign Policy and International Security recommending that the United States establish intelligence and military ties with China. The proposal, publicly commended by Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, and James Schlesinger, later became U.S. policy during the Carter and Reagan Administrations. He served on the staff of four U.S. Senate Committees from 1978 to 1984 and 1986 to 1991. As a staff member, he drafted the Senate Labor Committee version of the legislation that enacted the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1984. He also assisted in drafting the legislation to create the National Endowment for Democracy and the annual requirement for a DOD report on Chinese military power. In 1992, under President George H. W. Bush, Dr. Pillsbury was Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Speaker Bio

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Suisheng Zhao

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.

Adrian Zenz

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.

Cai Xia

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.

Virginia Wake

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.

Ovalbek Turdakun

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.

Daniel Tobin

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).

Ana Swanson

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.

Michael Sobolik

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.

Sean Roberts

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.”

Hon. Nazak Nikakhtar

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.

Jawad Mir

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.

James Millward

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.

Russell Hsiao

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.

Shelly Heald Han

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.

John Foote

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.

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.

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.

Lee Edwards, Ph.D.

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.

Claire Chu

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.

Emily de La Bruyère

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.

Amb. Andrew Bremberg

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.

Rushan Abbas

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.

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Greg Autry, Ph.D.,

Kyle Bass,

Bill Browder

Leta Hong Fincher, Ph.D.,

Michael Forsythe,

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Ursula Gauthier,

Chen Guangcheng,

Wei Jingsheng,

Dan Tobin,

Anastasia Lin,

Dimon Liu,

Oriana Mastro, Ph.D.,

Peter Mattis,

Bradley J. Murg, Ph.D.,

Scott Pace, Ph.D.,

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Robert Suettinger,

Adrian Zenz, Ph.D.,

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