logo_black-clear

Geopolitical Competition and International Institutions

Guiding Prompts:

What does national security mean in a world where the U.S. and China continue to be technologically and economically interdependent? How will cooperation and competition manifest in different sectors (e.g., tech, bio, trade, academia)? How does Belt and Road Initiative, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, and other new organizations fit into this alternative geopolitical architecture? What should the U.S. government do to compete successfully? What roles should the U.S. government, companies, academia, and society play?

Mentors

Dr. Elizabeth Economy

Dr. Elizabeth Economy is C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.  An award-winning author, her most recent book is The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (Oxford University Press, 2018).  She has published opeds and articles in numerous newspapers and journals, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Harvard Business Review. She consults frequently for the U.S. government and corporations and is a frequent guest on nationally broadcast television and radio programs. Dr. Economy serves on the boards of Swarthmore College, the Asia Foundation, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She received her BA from Swarthmore College, her MA from Stanford University and her PhD from the University of Michigan. She also received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Vermont Law School.

Dr. Elizabeth Economy

Bonnie S. Glaser

Bonnie S. Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, where she works on issues related to Asia-Pacific security with a focus on Chinese foreign and security policy. She is concomitantly a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. Ms. Glaser has worked for more than three decades at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and U.S. policy. From 2008 to mid-2015, she was a senior adviser with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, and from 2003 to 2008, she was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program. Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State. Ms. Glaser is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She served as a member of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board China Panel in 1997. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A. with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Bonnie S. Glaser

Susan A. Thornton

Susan A. Thornton is a retired senior U.S. diplomat with almost 30 years of experience with the U.S. State Department in Eurasia and East Asia.  She is currently a Senior Fellow and Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School Paul Tsai China Center, Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution.  Until July 2018, Thornton was Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State and led East Asia policy making amid crises with North Korea, escalating trade tensions with China, and a fast-changing international environment.  In previous State Department roles, she worked on U.S. policy toward China, Korea and the former Soviet Union and served in leadership positions at U.S. embassies in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus and China. Thornton received her MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS and her BA from Bowdoin College in Economics and Russian.  She serves on several non-profit boards and speaks Mandarin and Russian.

Susan A. Thornton