James W. Borton, is an independent environmental policy writer and former (Hong Kong-based) foreign correspondent for The Washington Times. He contributes regularly to Asia Sentinel, Asia Times, East Asia Forum, Geopolitical Monitor, Nikkei Asian Review, The South China Morning Post, Project Syndicate and World Politics Review. He has edited four books, The South China Sea: Challenges and Promises, Islands and Rocks in the South China Sea: Post Hague Ruling, The Art of Medicine in Metaphors and Venture Japan.

​He was a past National Endowment Humanities Fellow at Yale University. He has a B.A. and a M.A. with honors in American Studies from the University of Maryland. He has been a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center, the US-Asia Institute and Tufts University Science Diplomacy Center and has participated in numerous South China Sea conferences. Also, he co-founded the Mekong Environment Forum in Can Tho, Vietnam. He has just completed his latest book, Dispatches from the South China Sea: Navigating to Common Ground. He’s an avid sailor and waterman in South Carolina.