International Law

A Few More Words On Huntsman

By Stan

Since yesterday’s announcement that Obama had chosen Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah as the next ambassador to China, I’ve been wading through quite a few stories that have been put out in the major papers.

As I said yesterday, from all accounts it appears as though this was an inspired pick. I’ll link to a few of those articles below, but first let’s take a look at some of the line items (in no particular order) from Huntsman’s bio that make him the right guy for this job.

1.  Fluency in Mandarin — much is being made of this, and certainly there are very few US politicians in Huntsman’s league than have this skill. It is undoubtedly a big plus, even if his Chinese (which he learned as a Mormon missionary to Taiwan years ago) is limited or rusty. On the other hand, when compared to some of Huntsman’s other qualifications, I would put language skills somewhere down in the middle of the list in order of importance.

2. Governor of Utah — none of the news stories floating around out there actually discuss the fact that the new ambassador will be a high-profile politician who has been the executive officer of a state for several years. This is obvious. However, I think the political skills and knowledge of having a governor in this job should not be underestimated. It’s a big plus, particularly since governors these days are more and more involved with trade issues and the effects of trade disputes “on the ground” with companies in their state. I think it’s a valuable perspective.

3. Ambassador to Singapore — not the largest post in the world, but this experience is valuable for a couple of reasons. First, Huntsman should know his way around the State Department and related procedures, at least to some extent. Second, this represents another notch in his Asia belt.

4. Deputy at USTR — I have no idea what Huntsman did while he was at USTR, and the news accounts that include biographical information have not seen fit to dig into this. However, in my mind any experience at USTR is invaluable for a China post, particularly in this economy where trade disputes look to be on an uptick and may continue that way for several years. If Huntsman worked on Asia/China trade issues while at USTR (note that this was before China acceded to the WTO), even better.

5. Adopted Chinese child — this is a small bonus if anything. Doesn’t really mean all that much in the grand scheme of things, but I have a vision in my mind of the ambassador and his Chinese daughter posing for photos. People love crap like that.

Okay, the rest can be picked up from the linked articles below. The only other thing to mention is that Huntsman was until recently touted as a possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate. Obama appears to have removed from contention the only moderate Republican left out there that had a shot in 2012. Nice going. (In my opinion, though, a moderate Republican has no chance of getting through the primary process in 2012, so perhaps Huntsman’s presidential possibilities have been blown out of proportion by the media.)

I wonder how Beijing is going to deal with Huntsman’s Mormon background? This will of course not come up in the normal course of business, but if there is a task force being hastily assembled at a government office somewhere here at the moment, you gotta think that there are some heads being scratched as they try to figure out how to “play” that religious angle appropriately. It should be ignored of course, which I’m sure they will figure out eventually. The usual government banquet, replete with hot and cold running baijiu, could be a problem.

Okay, to sum up, the new ambassador is a moderate Republican governor, a veteran of USTR, a former ambassador in Asia, a Chinese speaker with family ties to this country, and son of a billionaire businessman — I will reiterate my initial impression: very nice pick.

Let’s just hope that we don’t find out that he has tax problems!

Financial Times

LA Times

CNN

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on May 17, 2009 (boomark / email).