Asia Society and the Asia Society Policy Institute are pleased to host His Excellency Wang Yi, State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, for a special address. The minister will be introduced by the Hon. Kevin Rudd, President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister of Australia.

Speakers

H.E. Wang Yi is State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China. He is a member of the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Leading CPC Members Group. Previously, he was the Minister and Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) (2013-2018), Director of the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council (2008-2013), Secretary of the CPC Committee and Vice Minister at the MFA (2007-2008), and Ambassador to Japan (2004-2007), among many other positions at the MFA. He also served as Director General of the Department of Asian Affairs at the MFA (1995-1998), when he also served as a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University (June 1997-January 1998). He is a graduate from the Department of Asian and African Languages of Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute where he completed an undergraduate program in Japanese, and he also holds a Master of Economics degree.

The Hon. Kevin Rudd AC is inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He served as 26th Prime Minister of Australia (2007 to 2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010 to 2012). He is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute in New York, and Chair of Sanitation and Water for All – a global partnership of government and non-governmental organizations dedicated to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House and the Paulson Institute, and a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s Group of Eminent Persons.