Jean Christophe Iseux von Pfetten

Professor Jean Christophe Iseux, Baron von Pfetten, (born 1967) is a diplomat, academic,^[1] and senior advisor to the Chinese government.^[2] Referred to by the Chinese press as the "Red Baron," ^[3]^[4] Pfetten served as a specially invited member of the upper house of the Chinese parliament from 2001 to 2005, the first European ever to hold senior public office in the People's Republic of China. In 2013 Pfetten hosted a series of private back-channel meetings on Iran's nuclear program attended by senior officials from Iran, Israel, China, the United States, France and the UK at his home ^[5] in Burgundy, France.^[6]

Early Life and Education

Pfetten was born in France. He received his BSc, MSc and Dipl. Eng degrees from the University of Strasbourg. In 1989 he patented two inventions in the field of hydraulic fracturing which he presented at the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Production Operations Symposium on April 7–9, 1991 in Oklahoma, USA.^[7] Pfetten was a Charge de Mission at the French Embassy in Bonn, Germany from 1991 to 1992. He also has an MSc in management studies from Templeton College, Oxford, graduating in 1991. He was a Research Associate at the Oxford School of Management Studies from 1992 to 1994.^[8]

Diplomacy

Pfetten was the youngest Ambassador at the United Nations in Geneva as a Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization ^[9] and UN Conference on Disarmament between 1996 and 1997.^[10]

Academic career

Pfetten is currently the President of the Royal Institute for East-West Strategic Studies,^[11] affiliated with Oxford University's Department of Continuing Education and has been a Visiting Professor at the Research Institute of World Economy of the People's University of China since 2006. He worked as Visiting Professor to the International MBA class of Tsinghua University from 1999 to 2000, Professor of International Economics at the School of Economics of Renmin University from 2000 to 2006. He was Director of China Studies at the Oxford Policy Institute from 1998 to 2005 and served as Vice-president of the consultancy group Oxford Analytica from 1994 to 1996. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris, Honorary Visiting Professor at the Assumption University of Thailand, China Advisor to the US Coalition of Services Industries as well as to the Malaysian government-sponsored Asian Strategic and Leadership Institute. He is also an Honorary Representative of the Vancouver Board of Trade.

China

Pfetten is a former specially invited member of the People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the upper house of China's parliament (representative for Changchun 2001-2005, and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Shanghai CPPCC Shanghai 2009-2012). He was Special Advisor on Foreign Economic and Trade Cooperation to the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 2005 to 2009. He is currently investment advisor to 34 local governments in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Qingdao, and Shenzhen.^[12] He is also an adviser to China's NDRC Investment Research Institute, China's National School of Administration, the MOFCOM Transnational Institute, the All-China Chamber of Commerce, the MOE Society of Environmental Sciences, the China Investment Association and the Chinese National Economic Research Institute. Pfetten serves as a business adviser to the CEOs of seven Fortune 500 companies and currently holds non-executive positions on the boards of several multinationals. Pfetten has been credited with attracting around 2% of total foreign direct investment into China since 2002.^[13]

Iran Nuclear Meetings

The Financial Times,^[14] Newsweek ^[15] and The Spectator ^[16] reported that between June and October 2013 Pfetten organized two rounds of back-channel diplomatic meetings on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. The first round, hosted by the Royal Institute for East-West Strategic Studies and held at Green Templeton College in Oxford, brought together senior Chinese and Israeli officials. A second, more confidential round of talks, hosted by Pfetten at his home in Burgundy, was moderated by former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke and former French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.^[17] Attendees included Huang Baifu, vice chairman of the Chinese Institute for International and Strategic Studies and a former head of Chinese military intelligence; a former senior leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps; as well as General Doron Avital,^[18] former chair of the Israeli Knesset's Security and Defense Committee. The talks were described by Avital as a "private academic gathering." Pfetten told The Financial Times that the "track two" meeting was "aimed at persuading Beijing to take a more pro-active involvement in the Middle East" and emphasized 'the willingness of China and the US to work hand-in-hand in resolving the Iranian nuclear issue.' ^[19]^[20]

An earlier round of back-channel meeting hosted by Pfetten at Selore in 2011 brought senior Vatican diplomats together with senior Chinese officials, the Financial Times reported.^[21]

Awards

Prof. von Pfetten was named a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 2003. Pfetten received the Chinese government's Confucius Medal in 1998 and the Lei Feng Medal of Merit in 1999 for his humanitarian work following the 1997 earthquake and 1998 flood in China (he is the first and only foreigner ever to receive this award).

Hound Breeding

Pfetten has been a joint master of the New Forest Foxhounds in Hampshire, England, and the Equipage de Vens et Venaille in Burgundy, France. He is currently master of the Equipage de Selore (Baron von Pfetten's Hunt) ^[22] a private family pack of foxhounds and buckhounds based at his home, the Chateau de Selore in St. Yan, Saône-et-Loire, France. One of Pfetten's English foxhounds, Colonel, was named “Meilleur de Race” (Best of Breed) at the French National Hound Show (Fontainebleau June 2011), and was Champion at the World Dog Show (Paris July 2011), the first ever foxhound to win the title.^[23] Pfetten was elected President of the International Foxhound Association in 2012.

UK home

Apethorpe Hall, a derelict Jacobean country house near Oundle in Northamptonshire which was a favourite haunt of King James I, was bought for £2.5m by Pfetten in 2015.