[2] It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle) and around the world (Hong Kong, Manila, Seoul, Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo,[3] Mumbai, Delhi,[4] Paris and Zurich).

The Society's headquarters are in New York City, and includes a museum that exhibits pre-modern, modern, and contemporary art from Asia, Oceania and the Asian diaspora.

[6] In January 2024, Kyung-wha Kang, who served as the first female Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, from 2017 to 2021, was named its president and CEO, effective in April 2024.

In 2011, Pogrebin said "over the last few years [it] has aimed to recast itself as an international organization, partly through the construction of the two major centers in Houston[13] and Hong Kong[14] where it previously had only offices".

The Center undertakes projects and events which explore areas of common interest and divergent views between the two countries, focusing on policy, culture, business, media, economics, energy and the environment.

[30][31] In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asia Society partnered with the nonprofit organization East Coast Coalition for Tolerance and Non-Discrimination and the Rockefeller Foundation to host a virtual forum entitled Standing Against Racism in the Time of COVID.

[32] Speakers at the forum included Representative Ted Lieu, then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, community organizer Bincheng Mao, and actor Tzi Ma.

To bar one of the contributors to our anthology, whether it is Joshua Wong or somebody else, from speaking at our launch event would undermine and in fact contravene that mission," said PEN Hong Kong President Jason Y.

[35] Back to November 2016, Asia Society Hong Kong also canceled a scheduled screening of Raise The Umbrellas, a documentary on the 2014 Occupy protests with appearance of Joshua Wong.

US Congressman Chris Smith, co-chairperson of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, expressed that "The Asia Society has some explaining to do after two events that featured Joshua Wong prominently were canceled over the past nine months," said the New Jersey representative.

"Asia Society takes this issue very seriously, and after looking into the circumstances, it is clear that an error in judgment at the staff level was made involving the PEN Hong Kong event.

[38][39][40] In an email to a member, Asia Society Hong Kong's Executive Director S. Alice Mong reasserted that as an independent non-government organization, it remains impartial and apolitical, and that its priority is to stay focused as an educational organization that presents balanced perspectives to promote critical understanding of topics that matter to Hong Kong, Asia and their respective roles in the global context.

[citation needed] On July 10, 2017, Forbes magazine ran an article revealing Hong Kong real estate magnate and Asia Society Co-chair Ronnie Chan (a US citizen) to be the political force behind the Joshua Wong incident.

He reiterated the Hong Kong center's deliberate stance to stay away from local politics and to cover business and policy, education, arts and culture as an institution.

He pointed to the increasingly blinkered outlook of the local political discourse and argued for the need served by Asia Society to bring a broader perspective for understanding the role of Hong Kong in a global context.