Twelfth Class of Visiting Fellows Joins the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings

Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today that four new visiting fellows will join the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies (CNAPS) for its Spring 2010 fellowship program. The group of incoming fellows includes scholars from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam, who will be in residence at Brookings until June 30. The CNAPS Fellowship program is in its twelfth year.

“This impressive group of incoming fellows consists of leaders within the academic and policy communities of Northeast Asia,” said Talbott. “I am especially happy that this new class includes, for the first time, a fellow from Vietnam. The expanded regional coverage of the program will enhance the significant contributions of the CNAPS fellowship program to policy analysis and exchange between the United States and Asia.”

This year’s class of CNAPS fellows is the first to participate in the program’s new format. Beginning in August 2009, CNAPS substantially restructured the visiting fellows program, hosting two separate classes per academic year. The fall class was in residence at Brookings from August 17 to December 18, 2009, and included one fellow each from China, Japan and South Korea. The spring class is in residence from March 1 through June 30, 2010, and, as noted above, will include one fellow each from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam. The research theme for the 2009-10 fellowship year is “energy security.”

The spring term fellows are:

Rongxing Guo is a professor and head of the Regional Economics Committee at the Regional Science Association of China at Peking University. Dr. Guo’s research interests include regional economics, especially cross-border issues, and Chinese energy and environmental economics. His proposed research topic while at CNAPS is “The Boundary/Territorial Disputes and Undersea Resource Management in East Asia.”

Hai Tien Le is director of the Research Centre for Petroleum Economics and Management at Petrovietnam Group’s Vietnam Petroleum Institute. He is well-versed in Vietnam’s energy economics, particularly the petroleum sector. Mr. Le’s research at CNAPS will focus on “Policies for Gas Sector Development in Vietnam.”

Simon Shen is an associate professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and an adjunct associate professor and coordinator of the Master of Global Political Economy Programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include Chinese diplomacy, Chinese nationalism, terrorism and national security, and Hong Kong’s external relations. Dr. Shen’s proposed research project while at CNAPS is “Sino-U.S.-Russian Energy Competition in Central Asia: From Energy Diplomacy to Ideologized Energy Diplomacy.”

Yuan-Ming Alvin Yao is the deputy director of research at the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies in Taiwan and a research associate at the MacArthur Center for Security Studies in Taiwan. His research interests include energy security, Chinese energy policy, and cross-Strait relations. While at CNAPS, Dr. Yao’s research topic will be “Consolidating Energy Cooperation by Political Reassurance: Constructing Energy Security Across the Taiwan Strait.”

Established in 1998, CNAPS promotes research, analysis and exchange and is designed to enhance policy development and understanding on the pressing political, security and economic issues facing Northeast Asia. The Visiting Fellows Program, the Center’s flagship initiative, offers mid-career fellowships that bring up to eight fellows each year from Northeast Asia to Brookings to conduct research and interact with the U.S. policymaking and academic communities. Under the direction of Brookings Senior Fellow Richard Bush, CNAPS also sponsors an array of policy-oriented seminars, discussions, and publications, including the Brookings Northeast Asia Commentary.