Jonathan Soble (Moderator)
Jonathan Soble is a partner at Kreab Tokyo. He previously covered Japan as a business reporter for international media organizations including the New York Times and the Financial Times, where he served as Tokyo bureau chief from 2012 to 2015. He joined Kreab full-time in 2023, after five years as a senior advisor. Jonathan is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has lived in Japan for more than two decades, beginning as a high school exchange student, and is fluent in Japanese.

Lam Peng Er
LAM Peng Er is a Principal Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He obtained his PhD at Columbia University. His articles have appeared in Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Asian Affairs, Japan Forum, and Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics. Dr Lam’s books include the single-authored monograph, Japan’s Peace Building Diplomacy in Asia: Searching for an Active Political Role (Routledge, 2009) and Green Politics in Japan (Routledge, 1999), as well as edited and co-edited volumes, South Korea’s New Southern Policy: A Middle Power’s International Relations with Southeast Asia and India (Routledge 2023), Contemporary Korea-Southeast Asian Relations: Bilateral and Multilateral (Routledge, 2022), Japan’s Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change (Lexington Books, 2020), China-Japan Relations in the 21st Century: Antagonism Despite Interdependency (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Japan’s Relations with Southeast Asia: The Fukuda Doctrine and Beyond (Routledge, 2013), and Japan’s Relations with China: Facing a Rising Power (Routledge, 2006). He is an executive editor of the International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (a journal of the Japan Association of International Relations published by Oxford University Press), East Asian Policy: An International Quarterly (East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore) and Asian Journal of Peacebuilding (a journal of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University). Lam is Singapore country coordinator for NEAT (Network of East Asian Think Tanks) and NACT (Network of ASEAN China Think Tanks). He is also heading the Korea Centre at the East Asian Institute.

Kavi Chongkittavorn
Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn was former executive editor of Bangkok-based, The Nation and editor-in-chief and executive director of Myanmar Times. He has been a journalist for four decades covering Thai and regional politics. He began his career as a reporter at the Nation in 1983 and became the paper’s foreign news editor in 1986. Then, he was asked to explore Indochina—first as Bureau Chief in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (1988-1990) and later on in Hanoi, Vietnam (1990-1992). After a year in Oxford University as Reuter Fellow in 1994, he then join the Asean Secretariat as Special Assistant to the Secretary General of ASEAN in Jakarta in 1995 before returning to journalism. He was name the Human Rights J 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Amnesty International. He was awarded ASEAN Award in 2010 for his report, comments and analysis on ASEAN by Association of Thailand-ASEAN. From 1999-2000, he was President of Thai Journalists Association. rom 2000-2001, he went to Harvard University as Nieman FHe served as a member of jury and its chair of Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize organized by UNESCO from 2001-2008. He was Asia Studies Fellow at East West Center in Washington from April to June 2018. Currently, he is a senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies and a columnist of Bangkok Post, Thailand.