Michael Paul Pillsbury, born in California, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute where he has served as Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy since 2014. He is also a Senior Fellow for China Strategy at The Heritage Foundation and Chair of the Defense Policy Board at the U.S. Department of Defense, appointed in December 2020. Pillsbury earned a B.A. in History with Honors in Social Thought from Stanford University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University, advised by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michel Oksenberg. His government career includes serving on the staff of four U.S. Senate committees from 1978-1984 and 1986-1991—where he drafted the Senate Labor Committee version of the legislation enacting the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1984—and various postings in the U.S. Department of Defense. Widely regarded as a 'China hawk' and an 'architect' of the Trump administration's policy toward China, he has advised multiple Republican administrations on foreign policy. In 2018, Donald Trump described him as the 'leading authority on the country.'