Following the 20th Party Congress, China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping engaged in a flurry of high-level diplomatic meetings with heads of state from dozens of countries in East and Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. In this episode of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Hoang Thi Ha, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, about Xi’s recent diplomacy, China-ASEAN relations, U.S.-China competition in Southeast Asia, and environmental issues in the Mekong subregion. 

Hoang Thi Ha is a Senior Fellow and the Co-coordinator of the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. Her research focuses on major powers in Southeast Asia and political-security issues in ASEAN, ASEAN human rights cooperation, ASEAN in Indo-Pacific discourse, and ASEAN’s institution building. Ms. Hoang joined the ASEAN Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam in 2004. She then moved on to work at the ASEAN Secretariat for nine years, with her last post being Assistant Director, Head of the Political Cooperation Division.