Jeffrey Bader is the John C. Whitehead Senior Fellow in International Diplomacy at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Bader returned to Brookings after serving in the Obama administration as senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council from January 2009 to April 2011. Prior to his appointment to the Obama administration, Dr. Bader was the first director of the John L. Thornton China Center and senior fellow of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He brings to Brookings profound expertise in U.S. foreign policy and Asian security after three decades of experience in the Department of State, National Security Council, and office of the United States Trade Representative. He is the author of Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s Account of America’s Asia Strategy (Brookings Press, 2012).

Dr. Bader joined the State Department in 1975. His assignments as a foreign service officer included Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, Zaire (Congo); Taipei, where he studied Chinese; Beijing; the U.S. mission to the United Nations; deputy chief of mission in Lusaka, Zambia; deputy consul general in Hong Kong; and several tours in Washington in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian & Pacific Affairs. He served as deputy director of the Office of Chinese & Mongolian Affairs from 1987 to 1990 and director of the same office in 1995-1996.

In 1996 Dr. Bader was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian & Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos. In August 1997 he was named director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, with responsibility for U.S. relations with the PRC and Taiwan, in which capacity he served until 1999.

From 1999 to 2001, Dr. Bader served as United States ambassador to the Republic of Namibia.

From May 2001 until May 2002, Dr. Bader served as assistant United States trade representative responsible for the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mongolia. In that capacity, he completed the negotiations for the PRC’s and Taiwan’s accession into the World Trade Organization.

After his retirement from the U.S. Government in 2002, Dr. Bader was senior vice president of Stonebridge International, LLC, until he joined Brookings in 2005. He also served as a member of the Editorial Board of China Security magazine, the Academic Advisory Group of the U.S.-China Congressional Working Group and the policy advisory Board of the Asia Society.

Dr. Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945. He graduated from Yale College in 1967 and earned his M.A. and PhD in European History from Columbia University in 1968 and 1975 respectively.

Dr. Bader is married to Rohini Talalla. They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

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