Speaker biographies

Michael Auslin studies U.S.-Asian relations, Japanese foreign policy, and Asian security as a resident scholar at AEI. Previously, Mr. Auslin was an associate professor of history and senior research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund, an Asia 21 Young Leader, and a Fulbright and Japan Foundation Scholar. His writings on Japan and Japanese diplomacy include the books Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Harvard University Press, 2006) and Japan Society: Celebrating a Century, 1907-2007 (Japan Society, 2007).

Christopher DeMuth is president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a position he has held since 1986. He was previously managing director of Lexecon Inc., a law-and-economics consulting firm; editor and publisher of Regulation magazine; administrator for regulatory affairs at the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; lecturer and director of regulatory studies at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; an attorney with the Consolidated Rail Corporation and with the law firm of Sidley & Austin; and staff assistant to President Richard M. Nixon. He is a director of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company and two family firms. Mr. DeMuth’s essays have appeared in The American Enterprise, Harvard Law Review, Yale Journal of Regulation, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and other publications.

Ichiro Fujisaki is the Japanese ambassador to the United States. Prior to his appointment in June, he served as ambassador and permanent representative to the UN organizations in Geneva. Ambassador Fujisaki also served as Japan’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, during which time he was also the prime minister’s personal representative (Sherpa) to the G8 Summit and Japan’s chief negotiator for free trade agreements (2002-05). He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1969. He served in Jakarta and in Paris as part of Japan’s delegation to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development before working in London at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. In 1994 he served as the director-general deputy director-general in the Asian Affairs Bureau, and in 1999 he served as the director-general for the North American Affairs Bureau and was later promoted to deputy minister for foreign affairs in 2002. In Tokyo, Ambassador Fujisaki held various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as in the Budget Bureau of the Ministry of Finance.

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