James R. Lilley

Ambassador James R. Lilley


United States Ambassador to South Korea
In office 1986–1989
President	Ronald Reagan
Succeeded by	Donald Gregg
United States Ambassador to China
In office 1989–1991
President	George H.W. Bush
Preceded by	Winston Lord
Succeeded by	J. Stapleton Roy
Personal details
Born	(1928-01-15)January 15, 1928 Qingdao, China
Died	November 12, 2009(2009-11-12) (aged 81) Washington, DC

James Roderick Lilley (simplified Chinese: 李洁明; traditional Chinese: 李潔明; pinyin: Lǐ Jiémíng); January 15, 1928 – November 12, 2009) was an American diplomat who served as United States ambassador to China at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Born to American parents in China, Lilley learned Mandarin at a young age before his family moved back to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. He served in the United States Army before earning an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a master's in international relations from George Washington University. He then joined the Central Intelligence Agency, where he would work for nearly 30 years in a variety of Asian countries prior to becoming a diplomat.

Before being appointed ambassador to China in 1989, he was director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial American diplomatic mission in that country, and ambassador to South Korea. After the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, Lilley was critical of the Chinese crackdown and harbored a prominent dissident in the embassy, but worked to prevent long-term damage to United States–China relations. After his retirement, he published a memoir and worked as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Biography

Early life and education

James Lilley was born in the resort town of Qingdao in coastal Shandong Province, China, on January 15, 1928, the son of American expatriate parents.^[1] His father, an oil executive who had moved to China to work for Standard Oil in 1916, and his mother, a teacher, hired a Chinese nanny to help raise him. He spoke Mandarin fluently from a young age, in addition to French and English.

In prewar China, Lilley befriended and played catch with a Japanese soldier. But in 1940, soon after the outbreak of World War II, his family returned to the United States as fighting between Japanese and Chinese forces began to ravage the coastal regions of China. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and served in the United States Army at Fort Dix from 1945–1946. During Lilley's army service, his older brother, whom he revered and who was a soldier stationed in Hiroshima, Japan, committed suicide.

After leaving the Army, Lilley earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University and a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University before studying classical Chinese at Hong Kong University and Columbia University.^[2] He began his career in government by joining the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951, at the beginning of the Cold War.^[1]^[2] In 1954, he married Sally Booth, with whom he had three sons.^[1]

Career

As a CIA operative, Lilley worked in various parts of Asia, including Laos, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China.^[3] In Laos, he worked to undermine the Communist insurgency, and he helped to insert a number of CIA agents into China.^[1] In 1975, he was appointed to the position of national intelligence officer for China, which made him the highest-ranked expert on China in the American intelligence community.

Early in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, he was appointed to the National Security Council, where he served as the senior expert on East Asia.^[2] From 1981–1984, he served as director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the United States' unofficial diplomatic liaison to the government of Taiwan.^[3] There, he resisted attempts by the State Department to end arms sales to Taiwan, which the department hoped would lead to better relations with China. Lilley's resistance resulted in a compromise in which the United States agreed to reduce arms sales to Taiwan but set no timeline for stopping them. To this day, the United States has continued the arms sales.^[1]

In 1985, Lilley became the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs. In the private sector, he taught about China at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and consulted for companies doing business in East Asia.^[2] In 1986, Reagan appointed him as the United States ambassador to South Korea, where he served until 1989.^[3] His tenure in South Korea coincided with profound political change there; the year after his arrival, the country held its first real presidential election in nearly two decades.^[2]

Lilley was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to be ambassador to China in 1989, becoming the only American diplomat to head diplomatic missions in both mainland China and Taiwan.^[2]^[3] Bush and Lilley had a longstanding friendship that began in the early 1970s, when Lilley was the head of station for the CIA in Beijing and Bush was the chief of mission. This personal relationship meant that Lilley often had the ear of the president on issues relating to China, and many of his missives home were read directly by Bush.^[1] In order to gain a better understanding of what was happening on the ground, Lilley began to bike regularly through the streets of Beijing soon after his arrival. Thus, he was familiar with the grievances of Chinese students who participated in the protests in Tiananmen Square later in 1989, and sympathized with their interest in a more open government and society.^[2] He criticized the Chinese government after the violent suppression of those protests, which garnered widespread international attention and condemnation. In addition, he harbored the political dissident Fang Lizhi inside the American embassy for 18 months before the Chinese government allowed Fang to enter exile in the United States.^[1]

Despite his sympathy with the students' cause, Lilley argued against severe actions by the United States government such as severing ties with China, believing that such actions would not have the intended effect.^[2] He also arranged for a secret trip by two senior United States officials to reassure the Chinese government that the United States wished to continue its relationship with China.^[1] He did so, he later said, out of a belief that the United States "could contribute in constructive ways to a more open China".^[2] Despite his criticism, he remained respected by authorities in China, many of whom turned out at farewell parties when Lilley left China and retired from the diplomatic corps in 1991. His successor argued that Lilley's childhood familiarity with Chinese society had given him a unique perspective on Chinese culture and government.^[2]

Retirement and death

Following his retirement from government service, Lilley became a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, focusing on East Asian relations, and continued writing and speaking about the relationship between the United States and China. In 2004, he published a memoir, China Hands, dedicated to his brother, which dealt with his early exposure to Asia and his professional career.^[3]

Lilley died on November 12, 2009, at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C., from complications of prostate cancer.^[1]

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Pomfret, John (November 14, 2009). "JAMES R. LILLEY, 81: U.S. ambassador to China served during crackdown at Tiananmen Square". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Stout, David (November 14, 2009). "James R. Lilley, 81, Envoy in Tiananmen Era, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
1 2 3 4 5 "U.S. Ambassadors to the People's Republic of China (1979–present)". Embassy of the United States, Beijing, China. Retrieved 2009-11-14.

External links

"The World Without US – A Documentary" – An interview with Lilley regarding the United States' involvement in Taiwan and Japan.
Appearances on C-SPAN
Chai Ling and James Lilley (the U.S. Ambassador to China during the protest) interviewed on Charlie Rose June 4, 1996

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Charles T. Cross	Director of the American Institute in Taiwan 1981–1984	Succeeded by Harry E.T. Thayer
Preceded by Richard L. Walker	US Ambassador to Korea 1986–1989	Succeeded by Donald Gregg
Preceded by Winston Lord	US Ambassador to China 1989–1991	Succeeded by J. Stapleton Roy

United States Ambassadors to China

Envoys to the Qing Empire 1843–1858	Caleb Cushing 1843–44 Alexander Hill Everett 1845–47 John Wesley Davis 1848–50 Humphrey Marshall 1852–54 Robert Milligan McLane 1853–54 Peter Parker 1855–57

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plentipotentiary to the Qing Empire 1858–1913	William Bradford Reed 1857–58 John Elliott Ward 1858–60 Anson Burlingame 1861–67 John Ross Browne 1868–69 Frederick F. Low 1869–73 Benjamin Avery 1874–75 George Seward 1876–80 James Burrill Angell 1880–81 John Russell Young 1882–85 Charles Harvey Denby 1885–98 Edwin H. Conger 1898–1905 William Woodville Rockhill 1905–09 William James Calhoun 1909–13

Envoy to the Republic of China 1913–1929	Paul Samuel Reinsch 1913–19 Charles Richard Crane 1920–21 Jacob Gould Schurman 1921–25 John Van Antwerp MacMurray 1925–29

Ambassador to the Republic of China 1929–1949	Nelson T. Johnson 1929–41 Clarence E. Gauss 1941–44 Patrick J. Hurley 1944–45 John Leighton Stuart 1946–49 Embassy in Taipei 1949–pres.

Chiefs of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing 1973–79	David K. E. Bruce 1973–74 George H. W. Bush 1974–75 Thomas S. Gates, Jr. 1976–77 Leonard Woodcock 1977–79

Ambassador to the People's Republic of China 1979–present	Leonard Woodcock 1979–81 Arthur W. Hummel, Jr. 1981–85 Winston Lord 1985–89 James R. Lilley 1989–91 J. Stapleton Roy 1991–95 Jim Sasser 1996–99 Joseph Prueher 1999–2001 Clark T. Randt, Jr. 2001–09 Jon Huntsman, Jr. 2009–11 Gary Locke 2011–14 Max Baucus 2014–pres.

United States Ambassadors to Korea

Envoy	Foote Foulk Parker Foulk Dinsmore Heard Sill Allen Morgan

Ambassador	Muccio Briggs Lacy Dowling McConaughy Berger Brown Porter Habib Sneider Gleysteen Walker Lilley Gregg Laney Bosworth Hubbard Hill Vershbow Stephens Kim Lippert

Authority control	VIAF: 6096883

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