Christopher K. Johnson is the President and CEO of China Strategies Group. As one of the top China experts in the field, his insights frequently are sought out by the world’s leading corporate, financial, and other business interests to help develop strategies for clients pursuing opportunities in China and regionally.  Chris is based in New York but spends nearly half his time in China and the rest of Asia.

An accomplished Asian affairs specialist, Chris served for nearly two decades in the United States Government’s intelligence and foreign affairs communities. In addition to his work advising multinational corporations on their business and commercial strategies in China and greater East Asia, his insights on the Chinese leadership and on Beijing’s economic, commercial, foreign and security policies are regularly sought by senior Administration, Congressional, military, and foreign government officials. Chris also serves as a Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis and is a senior fellow in the office of the president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the preeminent foreign and security policy think tank in Washington, DC.

Chris worked as a senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he chronicled China’s dynamic political and economic transformation, the development of its robust military modernization program, and Beijing’s resurgence as a regional and global power. He served abroad in field sites throughout East Asia and speaks Mandarin Chinese. He was an intelligence liaison to two Secretaries of State and their deputies on worldwide security issues and in 2011 was awarded the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for outstanding support to the Secretary and her senior staff. He also served with distinction in providing daily intelligence support to President George W. Bush.

After departing the CIA in 2012, Chris was appointed the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS and founded China Strategies Group.  Over eight years at CSIS, he mirrored his government success by establishing himself as a highly acclaimed public thought leader on China. Chris graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of California, San Diego and received his master’s degree in Security Policy Studies from the George Washington University.