Dr. John Hemmings, joined the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI APCSS) in July 2019. His areas of focus at DKI APCSS are Northeast Asian security, Japanese defence policy, the Indo-Pacific concept, alliance theory, and US alliances. He takes a special interest in 5G and national security.
Prior to arriving at DKI APCSS, Dr. Hemmings was the founding Director of the Asia Studies Centre and Deputy Research Director at the Henry Jackson Society, a trans-Atlantic think tank in London. During this time, he regularly briefed multiple government departments and agencies, including the UK Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defense, and gave testimony to the House of Commons Defence Committee on security in East Asia. While he was at the Henry Jackson Society, Dr. Hemmings co-authored a study on Huawei, 5G and the Five Eyes, multiple studies on the Indo-Pacific, and coordinated a project on diplomacy on the Korean peninsula.
Between 2007 and 2011, Dr. Hemmings worked at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in Whitehall, where he was a researcher on Northeast Asian defence and security studies. During this period, he undertook research on South Korean stabilization activities in Kabul and Parwan, Afghanistan on behalf of the Asia Foundation and reviewed Japanese defense industrial policy. Over the course of his career, Dr. Hemmings has held honorary fellowships with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Pacific Forum, and a visiting scholarship with Hitotsubashi University in Japan.
Dr. Hemmings regularly writes about international affairs for the Lowy Interpreter, the National Interest, CapX and the Telegraph newspaper. He also publishes with academic journals, and has written for International Affairs, the RUSI Journal, Issues and Insights, the Harvard Asia Quarterly, and International Politics Review. He gained his Masters degree in International Peace and Security from Kings College London in 2007 and gained his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 2017, where he wrote about the US-Japan-Australia trilateral.