Ryan Hass

Ryan Hass is a Senior Advisor to MA and The Scowcroft Group, focusing on China.

He provides strategic advice to clients on a global set of issues, with a particular focus on Asia and China. Hass serves as the director of the John L. Thornton China Center and the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies at Brookings. He is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Center for East Asia Policy Studies and a member of the Board of Trustees of The Asia Foundation.

Hass previously served as the director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the National Security Council staff.  In that role, he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of US policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and coordinated the implementation of US policy toward this region among U.S. government departments and agencies. He also worked closely with the US business community to address challenges that US stakeholders encountered in greater China.  Hass joined President Obama’s state visit delegations in Beijing and Washington respectively in 2014 and 2015, and the president’s delegation to Nanjing, China, for the G-20 in 2016, and to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings in 2016.

Prior to joining NSC, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer in US Embassy Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s award for impact and originality in reporting, an award given annually to the officer whose reporting had the greatest impact on the formulation of US foreign policy. Hass also served in Embassy Seoul and Embassy Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs. Hass received multiple Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor commendations during his 15-year tenure in the Foreign Service.

Hass is the author of “Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence” (Yale University Press, 2021), a co-editor of “Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World” (Brookings Press, 2021), and is a co-author of “U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?” (Brookings Press, 2023). He is co-chair of the international task force on Taiwan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Nonresident Affiliated Fellow with the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.

Hass was born and raised in Washington state. He graduated from the University of Washington and attended the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies prior to joining the State Department. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, and Mongolian.