Gary Locke, US ambassador to China, to leave post
Cites family needs as reason to return to US, denying smog drove him out rumours
US ambassador to China Gary Locke will step down early next year, little more two years after becoming the first Chinese-American to hold the post.
Locke said in a statement yesterday that he told US President Barack Obama when they met earlier this month of his decision to rejoin his family in Seattle. Locke, a former US commerce secretary and Washington state governor, took the ambassadorship in August 2011.
[Locke] has strived to foster China-US communication and co-operation
There was much speculation online that Beijing's bad air had led Locke to take his family back to the United States, but the ambassador denied the claim.
"Absolutely not," he told the Los Angeles Times before flying from Beijing to Kunming on a trade mission.
"We are concerned about it [air quality], but that's not what motivated us to go back. We wanted our kids to have junior and senior year of high school back in the United States."
Dali Yang, an American political science professor based in Beijing, noted that Locke's children returned to school in Seattle several months ago and his wife, Mona Locke, has been commuting between Beijing and Seattle.