David Arase is a resident professor of international politics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China (2012–present). Prior to this, he was a professor of politics at Pomona College, Claremont, CA, where he began as an assistant professor in 1989. He was a Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London from 1994 to 1995. He earned a BA from Cornell University (1977), an MA at Johns Hopkins SAIS (1982), and a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1989). Prof. Arase’s research areas include Indo-Pacific security, comparative foreign policy (special focus on China and Japan), Sino-US relations, international development (foreign aid), and comparative Asian politics. He has conducted resident research at National Chengchi University (Taiwan, 2022–2023), Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong (2020–2022), several times at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute (Singapore, since 2015), and the National Institute of Defense Studies (Tokyo, 2014). David is the author of Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan’s Foreign Aid (Lynne Rienner, 1995). He is editor or coeditor and chapter author of six volumes, including most recently The US-Japan Alliance: Balancing Soft and Hard Power in East Asia (Routledge-Nissan Institute, 2010), which was awarded the 2011 Ohira Memorial Foundation (Tokyo) Special Prize; The Rise of China: Implications for East Asian Order (Palgrave, 2016); Routledge Handbook of Africa-Asia Relations (Routledge, 2018); and The Belt and Road Initiative in Asia, Africa, and Europe (Routledge, 2023). David has also authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and media commentaries addressing his research interests.