James Borton

Note: This is the biography page of a former staff member, affiliate, etc., and may not be current.

James Borton is a Nonresident Fellow with Stimson’s Southeast Asia program. Borton is a veteran editor and writer with over 25 years experience in Southeast Asia. He was an Asia Pacific correspondent for The Washington Times and still contributes op-eds and special reports from the region. He is the author of Venture Japan (Probus 1992) and has edited two books, The South China Sea: Challenges and Promises (2015) and Islands and Rocks in the South China Sea: Post Hague Ruling (2017). In addition, he successfully edited two journals, Venture Japan and New Asia Review (Greenwood/Praeger).

As an ocean steward, he has reported widely for The Washington Times, Geopolitical Monitor, Asia Times, Asia Sentinel, The Diplomat, International Policy Digest, and Project Syndicate about environmental security issues in the South China Sea and in the Lower Mekong Delta.

He’s a faculty associate at the Walker Institute at the University of South Carolina, where he embraces an interdisciplinary approach to teaching writing and critical thinking about globalization and environmental issues.

Borton holds both a B.A and a M.A with honors in English and American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland and has been a former National Endowment Humanities Fellow at Yale University. He has also been an active member of the President’s Circle of The Asia Society in New York City and the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong and Phnom Penh. He is a National Fellow in The Explorers Club, an American-based international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research. 

Research & Writing

Subscription Options

* indicates required

Research Areas

Pivotal Places

Publications & Project Lists

38 North: News and Analysis on North Korea