Takamichi Tam Mito is professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A graduate of International Christian University (B.A.), he studied also at the Universities of Keele, Toronto, London, and Tsukuba (M.I.A. & Ph.D. in Law). Prior to his current appointment, he taught at the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Toronto and at Monash and Kyushu Universities. At Kyushu he was Foundation Professor of International Japanese Studies and Study Abroad Program. He also worked as a manager in the Department of Financial Engineering at Citicorp Investment Bank Ltd in London.

His major publications include: State Power and Multinational Oil Corporations: a Study of Market Intervention in Canada and Japan (Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, 2001); The Political Economy of the Oil Market: A Comparative Study of Japan and Canada (Fukuoka: Kyushu University Press, in Japanese 2006); Sengo Nihon Seiji to Heiwa Gaiko (Postwar Japanese Politics and Peace Diplomacy) (Kyoto: Horitsubunkasha, 2007). His 2001 publication received an award by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Currently, he is completing six books on Japanese studies in the Asia-Pacific Region as a co-editor and contributor (forthcoming in 2008 and 2009) and also a book length study of the impact of government policy on the industrial growth, structure, and performance of the oil industry in modern Japan as a single author. He is the recipient of many research grants from various prestigious bodies including the governments of Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan.

He has served for many professional and governmental bodies including Japan Agency for International Cooperation as a visiting professor of Japanese studies, Public Policy Studies Association in Japan, as the founding director; and the Japan Association of International Students' Education, as a founding vice president.

Conventional wisdom says that relations between China and Japan are fated always to be exceptionally wary, if not openly hostile -- and Japanese leaders' visits to the notorious Yasukuni have done nothing to undermine this view. Nor have Sino-Japanese standoffs over the disputed Senkaku islands. Meanwhile Beijing's opposition has been widely credited as the reason why Japan has failed in its reported aspiration to join the United Nations Security Council. Author and long-time Tokyo-based East Asia watcher Eamonn Fingleton argues that these issues have been grossly misunderstood in the West and that on closer inspection they say little if anything about the true state of Sino-Japanese relations. He insists that on a host of substantive issues overlooked by the press, Japan and China have been cooperating closely for decades. So much so that Japanese help has been one of the most powerful factors in China's rise.

A former editor for Forbes and the Financial Times, Eamonn Fingleton has been monitoring East Asian economics since 1985. He met China's supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in 1986 as a member of a New York Stock Exchange delegation. The following year he predicted the Tokyo banking crash and went on in Blindside, a controversial 1995 analysis that was praised by J.K. Galbraith and Bill Clinton, to show that a heedless America was fast losing its formerly vaunted leadership in advanced manufacturing to Japan.

His 1999 book In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity anticipated the American Internet stock crash of 2000. In his 2008 book In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony, he issues a strong challenge to the conventional view among Washington policymakers and think tank analysts that China is converging to Western economic and political forms and attitudes. His books have been read into the U.S. Senate record and named among the ten best business books of the year by Business Week and Amazon.com.

He was born in Ireland in 1948 and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. He was the recipient of the American Values Award from the United States Business and Industry Council in 2001.

Copies of Fingleton's newest book In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony - due March 4 by St. Martin's Press - will be for sale during the event.

In the past decade, academia has experienced a remarkable revival of interest in India. This is largely based on the perception of India emerging as a significant global economic power.

However, there is a non-economic reason as well. The sons and daughters of America's highly educated and prosperous Indian-American community drive this second reason. These students are eager to learn about the culture, religion, literature, and the languages of their parents' and grandparents' homeland.

Goldman will discuss these interesting trends in an effort to contextualize the state of Indian Studies in American higher education today.

Professor Goldman is professor of Sanskrit at UC-Berkeley. His areas of scholarly interest include Sanskrit literature and literary theory, Indian epic studies, and psychoanalytically oriented cultural studies. Goldman's work has been recognized widely, having been awarded several fellowships and research awards. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.