Using APEC and Trade Agreements to Advance U.S. Interests in the Asia-Pacific

"Using APEC and Trade Agreements to Advance U.S. Interests in the Asia-Pacific"

Featuring

Mr. Kurt Tong
Economic Coordinator for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
and
U.S. Senior Official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Moderated by

Dr. Victor Cha
Senior Adviser and Korea Chair, CSIS
and
Director of Asian Studies, Georgetown University

Monday, June 28, 2010
3 PM to 5 PM

CSIS B1C Floor Conference Room
1800 K ST NW, Washington DC

Kurt Tong will address the utility of APEC and trade agreements (KORUS FTA) in the current Asia-Pacific environment.

Kurt Tong is the Economic Coordinator for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, organizing bureau-wide efforts on economic policy issues. He is also U.S. Senior Official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), managing all aspects of U.S. participation in that organization.

Mr. Tong has spent 17 years working and studying in East Asia, including service at the U.S. Embassies in Manila, Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul. Most recently, he served as Director for Korean Affairs at the Department of State from 2008 to 2009. Prior to that, he was Director for Asian Economic Affairs at the National Security Council from 2006 to 2008. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Tokyo University Faculty of Economics from 1995 to 1996. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Tong was an Associate with the Boston Consulting Group in Tokyo.

Mr. Tong holds a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and studied graduate-level economics at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. He has also studied at the Beijing Institute of Education, Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies in Taipei, Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo, and International Christian University in Tokyo.

Mr. Tong speaks and reads Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. He has published articles in Nihon Keizai Kenkyu (an academic journal of the Japan Center for Economic Research), Foreign Policy, and the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (now Critical Asian Studies).

Victor Cha was named to the newly created Korea Chair at CSIS in May 2009. Concurrently, he also serves as Director for Asian Studies at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2007, he was Director for Asian Affairs at the White House. He also served as U.S. Deputy Head of Delegation to the Six-Party Talks and has acted as a senior consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the U.S. government.