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https://scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3125131/why-us-should-look-jim-sasser-model-its-new-ambassador-china
Comment/ Opinion

Why the US should look to Jim Sasser as a model for its new ambassador to China

  • Sasser’s conduct during the attack on the US embassy in Beijing in 1999 shows toughness is not everything
  • Rahm Emanuel lacks the calm and R Nicholas Burns the verve and autonomy needed for the job
Then US ambassador to China James Sasser peers through a heavily-damaged door at the US embassy building in Beijing on May 10, 1999, following two days of attacks by Chinese protesters against Nato’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Photo: Reuters

The image of US ambassador Jim Sasser peering out the broken door of the paint-splattered US embassy in Beijing is more than a moving photograph; it provides a mini-course in diplomacy.

The context: an anti-US demonstration whipped up in the angry aftermath to the US stealth bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999. The bombing was precise enough to destroy the building and kill three people.

There were those who claimed it was an accident, and others who insisted it was an intentional attack. Not surprisingly, opinion cleaved along national lines. Americans thought it unlikely to have been intentional. Why would a democratic country bomb an embassy? Chinese, and not just officials, thought it was intentional. Hi-tech and deadly, it showed the true colour of US imperialism.

In the hot seat during this maelstrom of national mood swings and incendiary opinion was US ambassador to Beijing Jim Sasser. The mild-mannered former US senator from Tennessee was a political appointee. He was no China expert, but a natural diplomat.

The bombing of China’s embassy and the aftermath that saw the US embassy chancery defaced and battered, but not destroyed, was as close to war as the US and China have come in modern times.

US embassy staff remove the plaque at the embassy’s main gate in Beijing on May 12, 1999. Photo: AFP
US embassy staff remove the plaque at the embassy’s main gate in Beijing on May 12, 1999. Photo: AFP

Although Sasser left Beijing a few months later, a departure that had been scheduled in advance, during that dire moment of need, he stood his ground, but he did so in a way that was at once wistful and empathetic.

The Biden administration needs to find an ambassador with such a temperament. Intimate China knowledge is highly desirable, but personality goes a long way in diplomacy, and with China and the US at tenterhooks, an even-keeled envoy can help keep the peace.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first stop on his first Asia tour is Japan. Although the US is rewarding Tokyo for its loyalty, or rather subservience, by treating it as the top diplomatic destination in Asia, everyone knows that China is paramount.

The Japanese media picked up on this decades ago, popularising the term “Japan passing” because Bill Clinton and other prominent US leaders tended to skip Japan and land in Beijing.

Blinken’s focus on Tokyo is a way of signalling that compliance is rewarded. It’s diplomatic theatre, but China takes such symbolic moves seriously.

Already an artful accommodation has been reached. Blinken and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will stop in Anchorage, Alaska, on the way home from Japan where they will meet with two high-ranking Chinese diplomats – Politburo member Yang Jiechi and State Councillor Wang Yi.

Top US and China envoys to meet in Alaska, White House confirms

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Top US and China envoys to meet in Alaska, White House confirms

The new US ambassador has to be able to play subtle diplomatic games of this kind convincingly. That’s why one of the alleged top candidates for the slot, former Chicago mayor and Democratic Party loyalist Rahm Emanuel, would be a disastrous pick.

He has a knack for making enemies; he did so as a Clinton adviser, and again after a brief tenure as Barack Obama’s chief of staff.

When I spoke to him with colleagues at a private meeting at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard in 1997, he flew off the handle every time he got asked a question he didn’t like.

Good diplomacy is not about showing how tough you are, though toughness, backbone and underlying convictions are important. When it comes to dealing with Beijing, keeping cool, calm and collected is also paramount.

On the other hand, a jaded diplomat such as R. Nicholas Burns, also considered to be on Biden’s shortlist, lacks the politician’s verve and autonomy of spirit of the sort that served Sasser so well during a crisis.

A bureaucrat who has loyally served diverse political masters with aplomb, Burns’ career spans the Bill Clinton years and both Bush presidencies.

Nicholas Burns, then US undersecretary of state, speaks to Li Zhaoxing, then Chinese foreign minister, at the Diaoyutai guest house in Beijing, on November 8, 2006. Burns is one of the frontrunners for post of US ambassador to China today. Photo: AP
Nicholas Burns, then US undersecretary of state, speaks to Li Zhaoxing, then Chinese foreign minister, at the Diaoyutai guest house in Beijing, on November 8, 2006. Burns is one of the frontrunners for post of US ambassador to China today. Photo: AP

He served as ambassador to Greece, and as George W. Bush’s envoy to Nato, and supported the war in Iraq. In 2008, he retired from the foreign service to spend more time with his family and lobby for arms manufacturers.

When it comes to dealing with Beijing in real time on the ground, it takes a leader, not a follower. Sure, ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president, but a good leader appoints qualified candidates and delegates authority to them.

Surely there are many men and women both knowledgeable of China and of good temperament worth considering for the job.

And the position should be filled soon to better stem the free fall in US-China relations.

Philip J. Cunningham is the author of Tiananmen Moon, a first-hand account of the 1989 Beijing student protests