Japan Rises to a New Generation of Challenges - with Ambassador Kurt Tong

Japan is no longer in its post-bubble doldrums, politically or economically, but it faces new external and technological challenges that will require an original private sector and public sector response, using new approaches to harnessing dynamism wherever they can be found.

Ambassador Kurt Tong is Managing Partner at The Asia Group, the premier business advisory firm focused on Asia, where he leads consulting teams focused on Northeast Asia. Prior to this work, Tong was a career Foreign Service Officer for 30 years, serving in Manila, Tokyo (twice), Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong. Tong was Consul General and Chief of Mission in Hong Kong in 2016-19, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs in 2014-16, and Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at Embassy Tokyo in 2011-14. Before that, Tong was Ambassador for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2009-11 and led the U.S. hosting and chairmanship of APEC in 2011. He was the State Department Director of Korean Affairs early in the Obama administration, Director of Asian Affairs in the Bush White House, and one of the architects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement during the Bush and Obama administrations, including while serving at the White House in 2006-08. Tong teaches Indo-Pacific economic diplomacy as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. He has a degree from Princeton University in international policy, and pursued graduate studies in language and economics at various universities and institutes in Beijing, Taipei, Tokyo, and Washington D.C.