Ryan Hass is a Senior Advisor to McLarty Associates 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 also serves as a a senior fellow and Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also a nonresident fellow in the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.
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 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. Hass is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His book about America’s relationship and rivalry with China, Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, was published by Yale University Press in March 2021.