John Lee is an Australian academic and policy expert working on international economic and security affairs with a focus on the Indo-Pacific.

Lee was a board member of the Institute for Regional Security (formerly Kokoda Foundation) from 2012 until August 2016.

[3] After boarding at the Sydney GPS school, St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill and finishing his HSC in 1991, he graduated with degrees in Arts (First Class in Philosophy) and Law from the University of New South Wales and obtained his masters and doctorate in international relations from the University of Oxford whilst on an Oxford Chevening Scholarship.

[6][7] In 2014, he co-authored a report with Paul Dibb titled Why China Will Not Become The Dominant Power in Asia[8][9] The report rejects the idea that America should step back from the region and treat China as a strategic equal in Asia; that China's military, economic and demographic shortcomings are considerable; that a China-dominated Asian region is unlikely without American strategic withdrawal; and defence planning in Australia should not assume Chinese dominance as inevitable.

[10] Lee has also emphasised the importance and desirability of Japanese power for a stable balance in the Indo-Pacific in the current century.