Mr. Jimmy Wang is a Foreign Affairs Officer specializing in the Asia-Pacific Region, with Chinese as his primary foreign language. He joined the State Department after 20 years of service in the Department of Defense (DoD). He develops cohesive policy recommendations on South China Sea issues, and ensures that policy is coordinated within the wider context of overall U.S. policy objectives.

Mr. Wang began his military career as a Marine Corps infantryman. He was then selected for the Navy Officer program as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) and received his commission in 2001. He served as a SWO from 2002 to 2013 and became a Navy Foreign Area Officer (NFAO) in 2014, specializing in China affairs and the Indo-Pacific region. 

Mr. Wang started his NFAO tour at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, where he advised the Fleet Command on all matters concerning the People’s Liberation Army Navy. He then served as the Northeast Asia Desk Officer for the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) at the Pentagon. His last tour in the DoD was at the Joint Staff as a senior analyst, where he assessed the global joint force on its ability to execute the National Defense Strategy.

Mr. Wang earned his master’s degree in national security at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. He has a B.A. in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy program in Washington, D.C.