Walter Hutchens joined the Commission staff as Director, Economics and Trade in January 2024 after two decades as a professor specializing in commercial law, China, and international business. Immediately prior to joining the Commission staff, he was the director of a University of Arizona law school program in Qingdao, China that enrolled more than 450 students who received law degrees from both the University of Arizona and a Chinese partner institution. He taught courses on U.S. Constitutional law; legal research, analysis and writing; and basics of contracts and torts. Prior to that, he taught for a decade at the University of Redlands in southern California where he was the University Endowed Chair of Global Business and chaired the Asian Studies Program. He previously taught in the business schools of the University of Maryland and University of Washington Bothell. He received a JD and MA in East Asian Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. He attended college in his home state of Alabama at Samford University where he majored in history. Hutchens first visited China in 1989 and has returned many times since for work and study, living in China for a total of nearly six years. He has published on China's regulation of financial markets, pharmaceuticals, and genetically modified organisms. He previously worked for Apple in its Cupertino, California headquarters and as a lawyer with a major U.S. firm in their New York City and Beijing offices.
Areas of Interest and Expertise
- China’s financial markets
- Trade and investment with China
- China’s domestic economy
- U.S. and Chinese law, especially constitutional, administrative, and commercial law
- U.S.-China educational exchanges