James R. Lilley
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Ambassador James R. Lilley |
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| United States Ambassador to South Korea | |
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In office 1986–1989 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Succeeded by | Donald Gregg |
| United States Ambassador to China | |
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In office 1989–1991 |
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| President | George H.W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Winston Lord |
| Succeeded by | J. Stapleton Roy |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 15, 1928 Qingdao, China |
| Died | November 12, 2009 (aged 81) Washington, DC |
James Roderick Lilley (simplified Chinese: 李洁明; traditional Chinese: 李潔明; pinyin: Lǐ Jiémíng); January 15, 1928 – November 12, 2009) was an American diplomat who served as United States ambassador to China at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Born to American parents in China, Lilley learned Mandarin at a young age before his family moved back to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. He served in the United States Army before earning an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a master's in international relations from George Washington University. He then joined the Central Intelligence Agency, where he would work for nearly 30 years in a variety of Asian countries prior to becoming a diplomat.
Before being appointed ambassador to China in 1989, he was director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial American diplomatic mission in that country, and ambassador to South Korea. After the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests, Lilley was critical of the Chinese crackdown and harbored a prominent dissident in the embassy, but worked to prevent long-term damage to United States–China relations. After his retirement, he published a memoir and worked as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
James Lilley was born in the resort town of Qingdao in coastal Shandong Province, China, and was the son of American expatriate parents. His father, an oil executive who had moved to China to work for Standard Oil in 1916, and his mother, a teacher, hired a Chinese nanny to help raise him. He spoke Mandarin fluently from a young age, in addition to French and English.
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