SINGAPORE (March 19, 2025) — Today, Carnegie China, the East Asia-based research center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace focused on China’s regional and global role, welcomed its new director.  

Rick Waters is taking the helm as director of Carnegie China and the Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair. Based in Singapore, Rick will lend his expertise and leadership to expand Carnegie’s research on China’s regional and global role, with a particular focus on Southeast Asian perspectives.  

Rick joins Carnegie after a twenty-seven-year career culminating as the U.S. State Department’s top China policy official, overseeing creation of the Office of China Coordination and as deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan. After retiring from government service, Rick served as managing director for Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group, a global geopolitical risk practice, and as a nonresident fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis.  

“Over my time in government, I benefitted immensely from Carnegie China’s scholarship and policy advice. I look forward to joining the talented team at the Center in their mission to deepen our understanding of China from Asian regional perspectives,” said Rick Waters, incoming Director of Carnegie China.

“We are delighted to welcome Rick Waters as director of Carnegie China. Our capacity to operate globally, including through our Carnegie China center in Singapore, helps generate the timely research and new ideas to help decisionmakers strengthen international cooperation and reduce conflict. Rick joins Carnegie China at a pivotal moment of growing geopolitical uncertainty to help us advance constructive dialogue on global peace and security with a focus on China’s strategy and economic path,” said Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Carnegie China maintains a robust suite of work with leading Chinese institutional partners. But with our broadened mandate anchored in the wider East Asian region, we look not just to harness Chinese perspectives from the inside out but regional perspectives on China from the outside in. Rick is a longtime colleague and friend whose deep experience with China makes him the right choice for this assignment,” said Evan Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies at Carnegie.

Press Contact: Wanyi Du, WDu@ceip.org

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