Speakers

Aya Adachi is Associate Fellow in the Center for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Technology at the German Council on Foreign Relations. She specializes in economic security, geoeconomics, and de-risking strategies. Her work focuses on analyzing the foreign economic policies of the EU, Germany, China, and Japan, with particular emphasis on their engagement with the Indo-Pacific and the Global South. She previously held positions at the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung and the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and served as an external consultant for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). She completed her Ph.D. at Rhur University Bochum. 

Michael Beeman is Lecturer at the University of California, San Diego. From 2017 until 2023, he was Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). In that role, he led the renegotiation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, among other initiatives. Prior to this, he served in other capacities at USTR and the U.S. Department of Commerce. He is the author of Walking Out: America’s New Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond (2024) and Public Policy and Economic Competition in Japan (2003). He holds a DPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford. 

Creon Butler is Director of the Global Economy and Finance Programme at Chatham House. He has written and published on a wide range of global economic policy issues, including the interaction between macroeconomic policy and climate change, sovereign debt distress, the challenge of funding global health priorities, and the long-term implications for the international economic system of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. He previously served in the UK Cabinet Office as director for international economic affairs in the National Security Secretariat and G7/G20 sous sherpa, advising the UK Prime Minister on global economic policy issues. 

Victor Cha is Distinguished University Professor, D.S. Song-KF Chair, and Professor of Government at Georgetown University. His books include China’s Weaponization of Trade: Resistance Through Collective Resilience (2026), North Korea’s Sea-Based WMD Capability (2025); The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea (2024); Korea: A New History of South and North (2023); and Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (2018). From 2004 to 2007, he served on the U.S. National Security Council, where he was responsible for Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Island nations and was also U.S. deputy head of delegation at the Six Party Talks. He is also President of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University. 

Raluca Csernatoni is Professor of European security and diplomacy, focusing on new digital technologies, at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, as well as Vesalius College, of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. At CSDS, she is a Senior Researcher on digital technologies for the EU-funded Horizon Europe project, Indo-Pacific-European Hub for Digital Partnerships: Trusted Digital Technologies for Sustainable Well-Being (INPACE).  She is also a Research Fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, Belgium. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Central European University. 

Douglas Fuller is Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School. His research covers technology policy, industrial policy, geopolitics, political economy, East Asian politics and management of technology with a focus on high-tech industries, especially the semiconductor industry and AI compute. He is the author of Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons: Firms and the Political Economy of China's Technological Development (2016) and co-author of State-Owned Enterprises and the Embedded Agency of Top Management Teams in Contemporary Capitalism (2025). He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Tobias Gehrke is Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He covers geoeconomics, focusing on economic security, European economic strategy, and great power competition in the global economy. Before joining ECFR, Gehrke was a research fellow with the Egmont Royal Institute in Brussels where he covered geoeconomics. He is also a non-resident fellow with the American German Institute, Washington DC. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Ghent University. 

Francesca Ghiretti is Director of the RAND Europe China Initiative and a Research Leader at RAND Europe. Working primarily in Defence and Security, she leads work on China and on economic security. She is an expert in China’s foreign policy, and Europe-China relations. Previously, she worked as senior geoeconomics fellow at a London-based AI company and as analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). She is the author of Chinese Investments and the Economic Security Turn in Europe: Where Economy and Security Meet (2025). She holds a Ph.D. from the Centre for Grand Strategy, Department of War Studies at King’s College London. 

Kristi Govella is Associate Professor of Japanese Politics and International Relations in the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford. She specializes in the intersection of economics, security, and governance, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region and Japan. Her research has examined topics such as economic statecraft, trade-security linkages, government-business relations, regional institutional architecture, military alliances, and the governance of the global commons. Her publications include Linking Trade and Security: Evolving Institutions and Strategies in Asia, Europe, and the United States. She is also Editor of the journal Asia Policy. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Akira Igata is Project Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, where he also leads the Economic Security Intelligence Lab at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST). His research addresses topics such as economic statecraft, economic security, emerging technologies, international politics in the Indo-Pacific, Japanese security and foreign policies, and the Japan-U.S. alliance. He advises the Japanese government, bureaucracy, and the private sector in various capacities. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Keio University. 

Keisuke Iida is Professor in the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include the politics of trade, the political economy of financial crises, the politics of regional integration, and the interaction between security and economics. His books include Japan’s Security and Economic Dependence on China and the United States (2017), The Future of Economic Hegemony (2013), International Political Economy (2007), Legalization and Japan: The Politics of WTO Dispute Settlement (2006), and International Monetary Cooperation among the United States, Japan and Germany (1999). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. 

Robyn Klingler-Vidra is Vice Dean of Global Engagement, and Reader in Political Economy and Entrepreneurship at King’s Business School, King's College London. Her research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation, and venture capital. She is the author of The Venture Capital State: The Silicon Valley Model in East Asia (2018) and coauthor of Inclusive Innovation (2022) and Startup Capitalism: New Approaches to Innovation Strategies in East Asia (2025). She holds a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 

Claas Mertens is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and a Junior Research Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. His research examines geoeconomics—especially international economic conflict, power, and risk—and the political economy of climate change, including sanctions and net-zero regulation. He previously held positions at Princeton University and the international management consultancy Kearney. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford.

Minako Morita-Jaeger is Senior Research Fellow in International Trade of University of Sussex Business School, a Policy Research Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. Her areas of research include free trade agreements, the WTO, regulatory cooperation, UK and Indo-Pacific trade policy, digital governance, and economic security. She was previously an Economic Affairs Officer at the UNCTAD in Geneva, a WTO services trade negotiator at the Japanese delegation in Geneva, and a Principal Trade Policy Analyst at the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) in Tokyo. She holds a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 

Abraham Newman is Professor and John Powers Chair in International Business Diplomacy and Director of the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. His research focuses on the ways in which economic interdependence and globalization have transformed international politics. He is the co-author of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (2023); Of Privacy and Power: the Transatlantic Struggle over Freedom and Security (2019), andVoluntary Disruptions: International Soft Law, Finance, and Power (2018), author of Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy (2008) and co-editor of How Revolutionary was the Digital Revolution: National Responses, Market Transitions, and Global Technologies (2006). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. 

William Norris is Associate Professor of Chinese Foreign Policy and Security Policy at Texas A&M University. His research interests include East Asian security, business-government relations, Chinese foreign and security policy, and international relations theory—particularly the strategic relationship between economics and national security. His work examines the use of commercial sector actors to achieve national foreign policy objectives in the context of Chinese grand strategy. His most recent book is Chinese Economic Statecraft: Commercial Actors, Grand Strategy, and State Control (2016). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Miguel Otero-Iglesias is Senior Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute Professor at the IE School of Global and Public Affairs and Research Director at the Center for the Governance of Change at IE University. He specializes in international political economy, including European Monetary Union (EMU) and other regional monetary cooperation projects worldwide; international monetary and financial affairs; globalisation and its effects; the power triangle between the EU, China and the US; Europe (especially Germany) in the era of the digital revolution, models of capitalism and theories of money and power. He holds a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from Oxford Brookes University. 

Martijn Rasser is the Vice President for Technology Leadership at the Special Competitive Studies Project. Martijn was previously CSO and managing director of Datenna, a firm specializing in techno-economic intelligence on China. In these roles, he led the company’s strategic activities—including partnerships and new market opportunities—and managed the company’s U.S. operations. Martijn previously was a senior fellow and director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, served as director of analysis at Kyndi, and chief of staff at Muddy Waters Capital. He is a former CIA officer. He holds an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University. 

Yeling Tan is Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international and comparative political economy, with an emphasis on China and the developing world. She is the author of Disaggregating China, Inc: State Strategies in the Liberal Economic Order (2021) and co-author of China Experiments: from Local Innovations to National Reform (2012). She has also worked in the public and non-governmental sectors on a range of issues including economic development, international security policy, global governance, and governance innovations. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University. 

Mariko Togashi is Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics (IOG) in Japan and works in private sector consulting. Prior to joining IOG, Mariko was a Research Fellow for Japanese Security and Defence Policy / Matsumoto-Samata Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London focusing on Japan’s economic security policy. She holds an M.A. in International Economics and Strategic Studies from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. 

Anna Vlasiuk Nibe is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Management at the University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include geopoliticization of international trade and investment, the EU's geoeconomic actorness, and the role of businesses in the changing global order. She previously worked as a legal consultant specializing in foreign direct investment, M&A, corporate law, employment and contracts. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Southern Denmark. 

Shino Watanabe is Professor in the Faculty of Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. She previously served as a Security Studies Fellow for the Research Institute for Peace and Security–Center for Global Partnership at the Japan Foundation and as a Research Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Tokyo. She holds a Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. 

Hugh Whittaker is Professor in the Economy and Business of Japan in the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford and a Governing Body Fellow of St. Antony’s College. His research interests include entrepreneurship, management of innovation, corporate governance, and employment relations in Japan, as well as political economy and economic development in East Asia. His recent publications include Building a New Economy: Japan's Digital and Green Transformation (2024) and Compressed Development: Time and Timing in Economic and Social Development (2020). 

Jiakun Jack Zhang is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas. He is also the founder and director of the Trade War Lab, a social science lab dedicated to dual mission of understanding the U.S.-China Trade War and its impact on heartland communities through a bottom-up, data-driven, firm-centric approach. His research interests include international political economy, international security, foreign policy analysis, Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and the political economy of trade and conflict in East Asia. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego.