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WASHINGTON: US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad will step down, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday (September 14).
Thanking Branstad for his service, Pompeo said in a tweet that he had “helped rebalance US-China relations so that they are results-oriented, reciprocal and fair.”
The reasons for the ambassador’s departure were not immediately clear, and China’s Foreign Ministry, while acknowledging Pompeo’s tweet, said it had not received notification of his resignation.
The 73-year-old former two-term Iowa governor had been in office since May 2017, representing Washington in Beijing during a period of strained ties with China, marked by tensions over trade, regional territorial claims, the pandemic. of the coronavirus and unrest in Hong Kong. .
In June, he was summoned by Beijing after President Donald Trump signed a law that paved the way for sanctions on Hong Kong, an action that the Foreign Ministry called “serious interference in China’s internal affairs.”
Last year, he called on Beijing to initiate a “substantive dialogue” with the Dalai Lama during a rare visit to Tibet, a region where the central government is accused of widespread repression.
Branstad, one of the first supporters of Trump’s 2016 White House bid, was appointed shortly after the election.
At the time, Trump’s transition team praised his “tremendous understanding of China and the Chinese people.”
It was reported that she had a long-standing relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom she first met in the 1980s.
