Mr. Christopher K. Johnson

Mr. Christopher K. Johnson

Senior Adviser and Freeman Chair in China Studies

Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)

Christopher K. Johnson is a senior adviser and holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. An accomplished Asian affairs specialist, Mr. Johnson spent nearly two decades serving in the U.S. government’s intelligence and foreign affairs communities and has extensive experience analyzing and working in Asia on a diverse set of country-specific and transnational issues. He has frequently advised senior White House, cabinet, congressional, military, and foreign officials on the Chinese leadership and on Beijing’s foreign and security policies.

Mr. Johnson worked as a senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he played a key role in the analytic support to policymakers during the 1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis, the 1999 accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the downing of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft on Hainan Island in 2001, and the SARS epidemic in 2003. He also served abroad in a field site in Southeast Asia. Mr. Johnson graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of California at San Diego (1994) and received his M.A. in security policy studies from the George Washington University (1996). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.