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Kurt Campbell, Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, United States National Security Council (NSC); and Laura Rosenberger, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan, NSC, will discuss President Biden’s China strategy, how it might differ from that of the Trump administration, and how the US can best pursue its values and interests amidst China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific. 

The Oksenberg Conference, held annually honors the legacy of the late Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938–2001) who was a senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Professor Oksenberg also served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.

 

Speakers 
 

Kurt M. Campbell serves as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the United States National Security Council. He was previously Chairman and CEO of The Asia Group, LLC, a strategic advisory and capital management group. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he is widely credited as being a key architect of the “pivot to Asia.” For advancing a comprehensive US strategy that took him to every corner of the Asia-Pacific region, Secretary Hillary Clinton awarded him the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award (2013) — the nation’s highest diplomatic honor. Campbell was formerly the CEO and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security and concurrently served as the Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly. He is the author or editor of ten books including Difficult Transitions: Why Presidents Fail in Foreign Policy at the Outset of Power and Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security. He received his BA from UC San Diego and his Doctorate in International Relations from Brasenose College at Oxford University.
 

Laura Rosenberger serves as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan on the United States National Security Council (NSC). Rosenberger was most recently the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States. Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the NSC. As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and later as then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Rosenberger also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Rosenberger first joined the State Department as a presidential management fellow.
 

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. McFaul also is an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.