C. Fred Bergsten, senior fellow and director emeritus, was the founding director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (formerly the Institute for International Economics) from 1981 through 2012. He is serving his second term as a member of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and was co-chairman of the Private Sector Advisory Group to the United States-India Trade Policy Forum, comprising the trade ministers of those two countries, during 2007-14.

Nicholas R. Lardy, called "everybody's guru on China" by the National Journal, is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program (1995-03) and served as interim director of Foreign Policy Studies (2001). Lardy has written numerous articles and books on the Chinese economy including Debating China's Exchange Rate Policy (2008), China: The Balance Sheet (2006), Prospects for a US-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement (2004), Integrating China into the Global Economy (2002), and China's Unfinished Economic Revolution (1998). Lardy is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the editorial boards of the China Quarterly, Journal of Asian Business, China Review, and China Economic Review.

Charles Freeman is a nonresident senior adviser for economic and trade affairs at CSIS. Previously, he held the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies. A second-generation "China hand," he has lived and worked between Asia and the United States his entire life. Prior to joining CSIS, he served as assistant U.S. trade representative (USTR) for China affairs and was the United States' chief China trade negotiator, playing a primary role in shaping overall trade policy with respect to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and Mongolia. During his tenure as assistant USTR, he oversaw U.S. efforts to integrate China into the global trading architecture of the World Trade Organization. Earlier in his government career, he served as legislative counsel for international affairs in the Senate.

Derek J. Mitchell served as senior fellow and director of the Asia Division of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Mitchell concurrently served as founding director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Initiative, which was inaugurated in January 2008 and was the Center's first dedicated program to the study of Southeast Asian affairs.