Asia Expert Lilley Seen as Choice for China Envoy Job
President Bush has selected veteran diplomat and Asia expert James Lilley to be U.S. ambassador to China, an informed congressional source said today.
The source, who demanded anonymity, said Lilley, a friend of Bush, had been chosen for the ambassador slot but passed over for the more powerful job of assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific.
Lilley, 60, was born in China and served in the CIA before taking senior jobs at the State Department and National Security Council and most recently the post of ambassador to South Korea.
He has been close to the President since 1974, when he served as an intelligence adviser to Bush when Bush was the American envoy in Beijing.
Lilley accompanied Bush on later trips to China in 1977 and 1985 and went with then-Treasury Secretary James A. Baker, the new secretary of state, on a trip to China in 1986.
The congressional source said Senate conservatives had hoped that Lilley would get the assistant secretary of state post and felt that he was being “exiled” to China.
Senate conservatives say newly appointed Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger had a big role in passing over Lilley for assistant secretary.
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