Jonas Parello-Plesner (Moderator)

Jonas Parello-Plesner is Executive Director of the Copenhagen-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation founded by former NATO-Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The Foundation seeks to advance democracy and strengthen the alliance between the world’s democracies including at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, the foundation’s annual event bringing together world-class speakers.

He has long-standing experience working with the power centres in Washington, Brussels and Beijing. He writes op-ed for Danish dailies Berlingske and Altinget and for international outlets, such as Politico: Europe can stop Taiwan from becoming the next Ukraine – POLITICO.

He recently published the book “the battle for Taiwan” based on two months extensive interviews in Taiwan with stakeholders from politics, economics and technology. The Battle for Taiwan: Parello-Plesner, Jonas: 9798873454327: Amazon.com: Books The book was reviewed in Politico and by Foreign Affairs.

In Matt Pottinger’s edited book “Boiling Moat”, he and Fogh Rasmussen published a chapter on Taiwan, Europeans and deterrence. The Boiling Moat: chapter 13 (hoover.org)

Jonas Parello-Plesner is also a non-resident senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund and former Senior Fellow with the Hudson Institute. His research focuses on Asia and China and relations with EU and the U.S and he has provided commentaries for Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, the American Interest, Newsweek, Politico and on broadcast. A well-received report published by the Hudson Institute from 2018 was on "The Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Interference Operations: How the U.S. and Other Democracies Should Respond."

Parello-Plesner has also worked at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) as a senior policy fellow with a focus on European-Chinese relations (2010-13) where he co-authored a seminal report on the strategic negative significance of German-Chinese economic relations for transatlantic relations and EU-policy.

He has long-standing diplomatic experience including as Senior Advisor on EU-China with the Danish MFA from 2005-09 where he also was representative in COASI (capitals). He started his diplomatic career in 2001 working on the Danish EU-presidency in 2002 leading to the large enlargement of the EU.

He returned to diplomatic service in 2013 and he was leading the foreign policy department at the Embassy of Denmark in Washington DC until 2017 bridging the Obama and Trump-administrations, organizing the Danish Prime Minister meeting with President Trump in March 2017.

His co-authored book, China’s Strong Arm: Protecting Citizens and Assets Abroad, was published in 2015 by IISS/Routledge in the Adelphi series and launched at the annual Shangri-La security Dialogue in Singapore.

Parello-Plesner is a graduate from école nationale d’administration (ENA) in Paris from 2004 with a ‘mention très bien’. As part of those studies, he worked in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the policy planning unit (centre d’analyse et prévision). He also holds master degrees from London School of Economics and the Copenhagen University.