US names veteran diplomat Mark Lambert as top China official
- The Asia expert, who did two stints at the US embassy in Beijing, will serve as deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan
- He will also head the US State Department’s Office of China Coordination, informally known as China House
Lambert, now the department’s deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan, will head the Office of China Coordination, also known as China House. The unit was established last year by the Biden administration to cope with what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “the scale and the scope of the challenge” posed by the country.
“He has deep experience working on issues related to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), forging aligned policies with our allies and partners, and protecting the integrity of the international system,” the State Department said in a statement.
The China House “is enabling the [State] Department to deliver on the Administration’s ‘invest, align, compete’ approach to the [People’s Republic of China] and advance our vision for an open, inclusive international system”, it said.
Lambert began the first of his two stints in Washington’s Beijing embassy in 2000, and most recently served as a deputy assistant secretary focused on Japanese, Korean and Mongolian affairs, and on relations with Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
He joined the State Department in 1990 and worked from 1991-93 in Bogota, Colombia, on counter-narcotics, human rights and anti-kidnapping issues, according to a 2003 Baylor University law school profile about him.