Moderator: Ezra F. Vogel, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Emeritus, Harvard University
Akio Takahara is professor of contemporary Chinese politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics, University of Tokyo. He received his DPhil in 1988 from the University of Sussex, and later spent several years as a visiting scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong (1989-91); the Japanese Embassy in Beijing (1996-98); and at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (2005-06). Before joining the University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University (1991-95) and Rikkyo University (1995-2005). His research interests include contemporary Chinese politics and its diplomacy. His publications include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China (1992), and “A Japanese Perspective on China’s Rise and the East Asian Order,” in Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (eds), China's Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics(2008).