Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University
and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and
Politics at The University of Tokyo. He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University,
and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong
Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator
Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The
University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served
as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New
Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of
Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and
Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan
Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on
International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of
the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage
Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the
Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-
Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of
Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.
