Experts

Evan A. Feigenbaum

Fast Facts

  • Vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  • Former deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia (2007–2009)
  • Former deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia (2006–2007)
  • Expertise on China, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, nuclear nonproliferation

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • Asia
  • Trade

Evan A. Feigenbaum, practitioner senior fellow, is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees Carnegie's research in Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi on a dynamic region encompassing both East Asia and South Asia. Initially an academic with a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University, Feigenbaum’s career has spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three major regions of Asia.

From 2001 to 2009, he served at the U.S. State Department as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia (2007–2009), deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia (2006–2007), member of the policy planning staff with principal responsibility for East Asia and the Pacific (2001–2006), and an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, with whom he worked closely in the development of the U.S.-China senior dialogue.

Following government service, Feigenbaum worked in the private and nonprofit sectors: He was vice chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago and the co-founder of MacroPolo, its digital venture on the Chinese economy; head of the Asia practice at the markets consultancy Eurasia Group, a global political risk consulting firm; and senior fellow for East, Central, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before government service, he worked at Harvard University (1997–2001) as lecturer on government in the faculty of arts and sciences and as executive director of the Asia-Pacific Security Initiative and program chair of the Chinese Security Studies Program in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He taught at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (1994–1995) as lecturer of national security affairs and was a consultant on China to the RAND Corporation (1993–1994).

He is the author of three books and monographs, including The United States in the New Asia (CFR, 2009, co-author) and China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age (Stanford University Press, 2003), which was selected by Foreign Affairs as a best book of 2003 on the Asia-Pacific, as well as numerous articles and essays.

Evan A. Feigenbaum News Feed

Srinath Raghavan is joined by Evan Feigenbaum to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the geopolitical and economic competition between the US and China and their prospects for cooperation.
Evan Feigenbaum Interpreting India
In this new video series, Carnegie’s Evan Feigenbaum talks in detail to six senior American decisionmakers who led the coordination with Beijing on some of the toughest—and indeed, some of the scariest—transnational problems the world has faced over the last two decades.
Evan Feigenbaum Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted the many issues in the U.S.–China relationship. Why can’t Washington and Beijing better coordinate a response to the pandemic, replicating their cooperative efforts during the 2008 financial crisis and 2014 Ebola outbreak? Paul Haenle spoke with Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on the dynamics preventing bilateral cooperation and the implications for a post-coronavirus world.
Evan Feigenbaum China in the World Podcast
Despite their strategic rivalry, the United States and China have a history of coordinating in past public health and economic crises. Now that they are tipping into enmity, it may take other countries to nudge them back toward collaboration and joint action.
Evan Feigenbaum Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
For more than six months, widespread protests calling for greater autonomy and democracy have swept over Hong Kong. In early January, Taiwan will hold its quadrennial presidential and legislative elections. These developments reflect the emergence and consolidation of distinctive local identities in both Hong Kong and Taiwan—identities rooted not in ethnicity, since both places are predominantly Han Chinese, but in social and political values and political and economic systems that have become markedly different from those on mainland China. In light of this, China is attempting to increase its control over Hong Kong and to push for unification with Taiwan. It is claiming that its economic and governance models are just as legitimate and often more effective than those associated with the West. In response, the United States is increasing its interest in the success of Taiwan’s democratic institutions and market economy, and in the preservation of autonomy and freedom in Hong Kong, even as its own domestic institutions are coming under stress. Join us for an assessment of how these facts have become central to the growing competition.
Evan Feigenbaum Miller Center Presents
Innovation has been a source of comparative advantage for Taiwan historically. It has also been an important basis for U.S. firms, investors, and government to support Taiwan’s development while expanding mutually beneficial linkages. Yet, both Taiwan’s innovation advantage and the prospect of jointly developed, technologically disruptive collaborations face challenges.
Evan Feigenbaum Carnegie Endowment for International Peace