James J. Przystup

James J. Przystup is a senior fellow with Hudson Institute’s Japan Chair. His work at Hudson analyzes the Indo-Pacific region with a special focus on alliance management issues with respect to Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, the Quad, and ASEAN. He also studies Europe’s growing interest in the Indo-Pacific, and challenges posed by China to the existing rules-based regional and international order. 

Dr. Przystup has worked on Asia-related issues for over thirty years: on the staff of the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs; in the private sector with Itochu Corporation and IBM World Trade Americas/Far East Corporation; in the United States Government, on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State George P. Shultz and under Secretary of State James A. Baker III, as senior member responsible for East Asia and the Pacific; and in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, as director for regional security strategies on the policy planning staff. During the administration of President Ronald Reagan, Dr. Przystup served as the deputy director of the Presidential Advisory Commission on US-Japan Relations. He also served on the State Department delegation to the Paris Peace Conference on Cambodia. He was previously director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation. Dr. Przystup was presented with the State Department’s Meritorious Honor award in 1989 and 1991; the Defense Department’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 1992; and cited for his Exceptional Performance by the National Defense University on three separate occasions.

Dr. Przystup graduated summa cum laude from the University of Detroit and holds an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago and a PhD in diplomatic history also from the University of Chicago. He studied Japanese at Columbia University and Keio University in Tokyo and was a visiting fellow on the law faculty of Keio University.