Akihiko Tanaka is Professor of International Politics specializing in theories of international politics, contemporary international politics in East Asia and Japan's foreign policy. Professor Tanaka obtained his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Tokyo's College of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. He was a Japanese member of the East Asia Vision Group, an advisory panel for the ASEAN+3 summit. He has also been a member of various government advisory panels including the Council on Security and Defense Capability and the Advisory Group on International Cooperation for Peace. He has numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including The New Middle Ages: The World System in the 21st Century (The International House of Japan, 2002). His most recent edited volume was An East Asian Community and the United States (Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., 2007, co-edited with Ralph A. Cossa). In the ITASIA program, Professor Tanaka is responsible for "Introduction to Asian Studies" as well as "International Politics in East Asia."