Evan S. Medeiros

Evan S. Medeiros is a nonresident senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In June 2015, he stepped down from the position of special assistant to the president and senior director for Asian affairs at the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). In that role, Medeiros served as President Barack Obama’s top adviser on the Asia-Pacific and was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy toward the region across the areas of diplomacy, defense policy, economic policy, and intelligence affairs. He joined the National Security Council staff in summer 2009 as director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolian affairs. In total, he served on the NSC staff for nearly six years.

Medeiros previously worked as a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He specialized in research on the international politics of East Asia, China’s foreign and national security policies, U.S.-China relations, and Chinese defense and security issues. From 2007 to 2008, he served as policy adviser to the special envoy for China and the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department, serving Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson.

Medeiros has written several books and journal articles on a broad range of Asian security issues. In 2009, he published China’s International Behavior: Activism, Opportunism and Diversification (RAND, 2009) and in 2008 co-authored Pacific Currents: The Responses of U.S. Allies and Security Partners in East Asia to China’s Rise (RAND, 2008). In 2007, he published the internationally recognized volume Reluctant Restraint: The Evolution of China’s Nonproliferation Policies and Practices, 1980-2004 (Stanford University Press, 2007).

Prior to joining RAND, Medeiros was a senior research associate at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. In 2000, he was a visiting fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and an adjunct lecturer at China’s Foreign Affairs College.