Jeffrey Allen Bader (July 1, 1945 – October 22, 2023) was an American diplomat who was senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council in the Obama Administration,[1][2][3] with The New York Times calling him "one of the country's leading experts on China".
However, in 1977, he was chosen by Richard Holbrooke to join a team of up-and-coming diplomats tasked with building U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China.
[4] Bader retired from foreign service in 2002 and later joined the Brookings Institution, where he was senior fellow and inaugural director of the John L. Thornton China Center.
[4] The following year, he published a memoir entitled Obama and China's Rise: An Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy.
Talalla is an immigrant from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is of mixed Sri Lankan, Welsh, Burmese and Chinese ancestry.