Steve Clemons is Editor at Large of The Hill, America's most read political media platform. For the previous nine years, Mr. Clemons served as Editor at Large of The Atlantic and has been a long time political and economic issues contributor to MSNBC. He is also host of the weekly news show, The Bottom Line, that appears on the global network of Al Jazeera English, YouTube TV and Roku. He is proprietor of the popular political blog, The Washington Note. He also founded and serves as Senior Fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation where he previously served as Executive Vice President. Prior to this, Mr. Clemons served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, was Senior Economic & International Affairs Advisor to Senator Jeff Bingaman, and was the founding Executive Director of the Nixon Center, now re-named the Center for National Interest.

Mr. Clemons serves on the advisory boards of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College, and of GLOBSEC, a European think tank focused on global economic and security affairs.

Richard Fontaine is the Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He served as President of CNAS from 2012-19 and as Senior Advisor and Senior Fellow from 2009-12. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Fontaine served as foreign policy advisor to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently as the minority deputy staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Prior to that, he served as Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) from 2003-04. He also worked on Southeast Asian issues in the NSC’s Asian Affairs directorate.

At the State Department, Mr. Fontaine worked in the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and in the department’s South Asia bureau. Mr. Fontaine began his foreign policy career as a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on the Middle East and South Asia. He also spent a year teaching English in Japan.

Mr. Fontaine currently serves as Executive Director of the Trilateral Commission and has been an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

A native of New Orleans, Mr. Fontaine graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations from Tulane University. He also holds a M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, and he attended Oxford University. He lives in Virginia with his wife and their four children.

Valerie Niquet, PhD Pol.Sc. MA Chinese, BA Japanese, (University of Paris) is head of the Asia department at FRS (Fondation pour la recherche stratégique). She was formerly the Director of Asia Centre IFRI (Institut Français des Relations Internationales) where she built new research programs on China, India and Japan.

Dr. Niquet is a member of the scientific committee of the Conseil supérieur de la formation et de la recherche stratégique (CSFRS) and consultant for Centre d’analyse prospective et stratégie (CAPS).

She has published extensively on Strategic issues, international relations and defence policies in Asia as well as the evolutions of the Chinese political system. She is also the translator of two major works of the Chinese military classics (the Art of war by Sun Zi and the Military Treaty by Sun Bin). Her latest publications include “Confu-talk: the Use of Confucian Concepts in Contemporary Chinese Foreign Policy”, in Anne-Marie Brady, China’s Thought Management, Routledge, Chine-Japon, l’affrontement,Paris, Perrin and La puissance chinoise en 100 questions, Tallandier.

Dr. Niquet is currently visiting research fellow at the Japanese Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) and teaches at Keio University International Course.

Nobukatsu Kanehara is professor of Doshisha University, Kyoto, a senior advisor to The Asia Group and a board member of National Bureau of Asian Research. Mr. Kanehara draws on substantial experience serving at the highest levels in the Government of Japan, where he was recognized as a leading diplomat and strategic voice on international affairs, and offers nuanced insights into Japanese national security priorities, as well as domestic political and policy dynamics.

Most recently, Mr. Kanehara served as Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012 to 2019. In 2013, Mr. Kanehara also became the inaugural Deputy Secretary-General of the National Security Secretariat, a role which he held until his retirement from government service in 2019. He also served as Deputy Director of the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office.

Mr. Kanehara’s role in the Cabinet built on a distinguished career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served in a number of notable positions. These included the Director-General of Bureau of International Law, Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Policy Bureau, Ambassador in charge of the United Nations and Human Rights, Deputy Director-General of European Affairs in charge of Russia and Eastern Europe, Director of the Ministry’s Policy Coordination Division, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty Division. He served abroad as Deputy Chief of Mission in Seoul, Republic of Korea, Minister at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, the United States and Minister of the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations.

Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Mr. Kanehara entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs following his graduation from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law in 1981. Early during his career at the Ministry, he studied at the École Nationale d’Administration in France. He is the author of Senryaku Gaiko Genron: A Grand Strategy of Japan for the 21st Century (2011, Nihon-keizai-shinbumsha). He contributed an article titled “The power of Japan and it’s grand strategy” to Japan’s World Power  edited by Professor Guibourg Delamotte (2019, Routledge). He currently teaches at Doshisha University’s Faculty of Law as professor and has previously taught at the Faculty of Law and the Graduate School of Law at Waseda University. He is proficient in French, as well as Japanese and English. He was decorated by the president of Republic of France with Ordre de la Legion d’Honneur.