Paul Haenle

In addition to his role at Carnegie, Haenle is also Chairman, Asia Pacific Region, at the CEO advisory firm Teneo and a senior advisor at Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, where he assists U.S. and foreign businesses with their cross-border business strategy, including the development of key government relationships, crisis management, and public relations. Haenle also serves as senior advisor to SAGE Worldwide, a global events and speaker company; the Royal Asiatic Society, Beijing Chapter; and the Young China Watchers, a global platform for facilitating dialogue between international and Chinese young professionals. He is also an adjunct professor at Tsinghua University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses on international relations and global governance. In 2018, Haenle was elected to the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Haenle is an expert on U.S.-China relations, China’s foreign and defense policy, and North Korea. He hosts CTC's biweekly "China in the World" podcast, which features a series of conversations with Chinese and international experts on China’s foreign policy, China’s international role, and China’s relations with the world. Since the first episode in 2013, the podcast has been downloaded over a million times from over 125 countries. Haenle also writes for and is frequently quoted by major global media outlets including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, and the Financial Times. He is also a frequent contributor to the Asia Society’s ChinaFile.

Paul Haenle holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy (CTC) in Beijing, China. He established CTC, the Beijing-based think tank of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at Tsinghua University in 2010. In 2018, CTC was named the “Best International Global Affairs Think Tank” by Prospect Magazine.

Trained as a China foreign area officer in the U.S. Army, Haenle was twice assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He served as a U.S. Army company commander during a two-year tour to the Republic of Korea. Early assignments in the U.S. Army included postings in Germany, Desert Storm, Korea, and Kuwait. He retired from active duty as a lieutenant colonel in October 2009.

Prior to joining Carnegie, Haenle served as the White House China director on the National Security Council under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was also the White House representative to the U.S. negotiating team at the Six-Party Talks from June 2007 to January 2009. During his distinguished government service, Haenle served as special assistant to U.S. National Security Advisors Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley from 2004 to 2007, and in the Pentagon as a China advisor for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Paul Thomas Haenle (born (1966-04-21)April 21, 1966) is an American political adviser, and an international relations professor and consultant.