BLAINE HARDEN has written for The Washington Post since 1978 and has been its Tokyo bureau chief since 2007. He has also worked for the Post as Africa correspondent, Eastern European correspondent, investigative reporter, presidential political reporter, New York bureau chief and national reporter covering the American West from Seattle. From 1998 to 2003, he worked at The New York Times as a national reporter and writer for the Sunday magazine. His experiences in Africa were distilled into Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, published by Norton in 1990. His years in Europe allowed him to cover the Balkans wars and the collapse of communism. He wrote many stories on the rise, reign and rot of Slobodan Milosevic. Harden grew up near the Columbia River in eastern Washington State, where his father worked at the Grand Coulee Dam. He took a two-year leave in 1993-95 to write a book, A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia, also published by Norton (1996). In the past year, he has spent much of his time writing about North Korea. He is married to Jessica Kowal, a freelance writer and editor, and they have two children, Lucinda, 7, and Arno, 4. They all love Tokyo.

MURE DICKIE, the Financial Times’ Tokyo bureau chief, has spent most of the last 20 years in East Asia, mainly China and Japan. Before moving to Tokyo at the end of 2008, he was an FT correspondent in Beijing for five years, helping to chart China’s emergence as a global power and also scoring a coveted all-venues pass for the August 2008 Beijing Olympics. From 1999-2003, Mure was the FT’s Taipei correspondent and before that worked as a correspondent and sub-editor for Reuters in Beijing and Tokyo. He gets by in Mandarin and Japanese and is a long-time practitioner of kendo, or Japanese fencing, holding the 4th dan grade.

AKIKO KASHIWAGI is a freelance writer covering Japan’s business and society. Previously, she was a reporter for Newsweek International and The Washington Post, reporting primarily on Japan’s business and economic issues for 15 years. Kashiwagi has written on issues ranging from the nation’s industrial competitiveness, green technologies and financial reforms to the impact of China’s rise on Japan’s economy. One of the unique stories she did at Newsweek was a profile on Japan’s “First Lady,” Akie Abe. The story explored, among others, whether the young and candid wife of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could break the mold as first lady and inspire other women in Japan. Unfortunately, her tenure was too short to make any difference. But it is the kind of stories that Kashiwagi hopes to do more in coming months. She spent some of her school years in Colorado and enjoys hiking and running.

REGULAR MEMBERS
Blaine C. Harden, The Washington Post
Patrick Mure Dickie, Financial Times
Akiko Kashiwagi, Freelance

PROFESSIONAL/JOURNALIST ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Hak-Min Kim, Thomson Reuters
Syuzaburo Arashi, TV Asahi

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Masatoshi Yoshida, Kyoeikai Hoken Daiko, Co., Ltd.
Hideyuki Muto, Net One Systems Co., Ltd.
Hiroyuki Watabiki, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.
Shuji Asano, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.
Jun Yamamoto, JCNT Co., Ltd.
Ryota Mizutani, The National Policy Research Institute
Takeshi Suzuki, FP Link Co., Ltd.
Wako Shimizu, Motor Sports Planning
Kinu Sakurai, Sakurai Hospital

REINSTATEMENT (ASSOCIATE MEMBERS)
Yoshihiko Kawamura, Mitsubishi Corporation