Managing the New Cold War, 23 July | 9 am ET

Dr. Alan Dupont is one of Australia's best-known strategists, Asianists and thought leaders on geopolitical risk, foreign policy, defense and national security.

Dr. Dupont AO is CEO of the geopolitical risk consultancy the Cognoscenti Group. His work on geopolitical risk, foreign policy, defense and national security has earned him an international reputation as an Asia specialist.

He has been an advisor to a number of Australian ministers of defense and foreign affairs. In 2013/14, Alan established and led the Abbott Government’s Defense White Paper team. He has received commendations for his work from the governments of Japan and East Timor and was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of Australia’s top strategists. He was appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to the international community through security analysis and strategic policy development.”

Following 25 years of service in government as an army officer, defense intelligence analyst and diplomat, Alan took his talents to academia. Some of his appointments include: Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy; Councillor with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; the inaugural holder of the Michael Hintze Chair in International Security at the University of Sydney and Director of the Centre for International Security Studies; CEO of the US Studies Centre and, most recently, Professor of International Security at the University of NSW. He has also written for the Atlantic Council.

In the private sector, his clients have included British Aerospace, British Telecom, Boeing Australia, KPMG, Northrop Grumman, and Shell.

Alan is also a much sought-after commentator. He is Contributing National Security Editor for The Australian newspaper and frequently comments on defense and security issues for the media including the ABC, SBS, Sky, CNN, CNBC Asia, the BBC, Voice of America and Reuters. The author of nearly 100 books, monographs and articles on defense and international security, his book East Asia Imperiled, published by Cambridge University Press, is considered an authoritative work on the non-military, transnational challenges to East Asian Security.

Alan holds a PhD in international relations from the Australian National University and is a graduate of the Royal Military College Duntroon and the US Foreign Service Institute.

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, Ana 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, D.C.

Before moving to Washington, D.C., she lived and worked in China for eight years.

Jia Qingguo is a Professor and former Dean of the School of International Studies of Peking University.

He is Vice President of the Chinese American Studies Association. He is also a member of Standing Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League. He is serving on the editorial board of several international academic journals. He has published extensively on US-China relations, relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, Chinese foreign policy and Chinese politics. 

He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988. He has taught in University of Vermont, Cornell University, University of California at San Diego, University of Sydney in Australia as well as Peking University. He was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution between 1985 and 1986, a visiting professor at the University of Vienna in 1997 and a fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in 2001 and 2002.