Gary Locke, the first American Chinese Ambassador, is leaving Beijing on March 1, 2014, after resigning his position as ambassador. When Gary was first appointed by Obama as ambassador to China, many Chinese were very hopeful about him as the first American Chinese U.S. Ambassador to China. At the time, China Daily asked me to write a piece about Gary Locke’s prospect as the first American Chinese U.S. Ambassador to China. I pointed out in my commentary at the time that those who were putting too much hope on Gary Locke were bound to be disappointed in the end. As an American Chinese politician, Gary Locke’s had to overcome tremendous cultural barriers to be successful in the U.S. He had to demonstrate his allegiance to the United States to a high degree in order to be accepted. As a politician, he is more American than anything else.





As Gary Locke’s career as the first American Chinese U.S. Ambassador to China comes to an end, it is safe to say that my prediction about Gary Locke turned out to be very accurate. He has used every opportunity possible to demonstrate his allegiance to the U.S. government and to criticize Chinese Government more harshly than any of his predecessors ever did. During his tenure as U.S. ambassador to China, U.S. China relationship has been rocky, to say the least.





Even his arrival in China, with his family on his side, carrying a backpack, flying economy class, was calculated to be sensational in China. He tried to create an impression that American politicians are more easy going, more accessible, and less corrupt than their Chinese counterparts. But the impression he created was deceptive and superficial. Many Chinese intellectual elites tried to promote American democracy in China as a panacea for eliminating official corruption. The truth of the matter is that the countries that have adopted the American political system, like Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, and many more, are trapped in webs of political corruption. Even the United States of America, the ideal model in the eyes of many Chinese intellectual elite, corruption is rampant. The only difference is that it is not called corruption in the U.S. But, a system that allows wealth to concentrate in the hands of a tiny number of people is corrupt, whether it is said to be so or not.



Gary Locke talked about the U.S. rule of law a great deal to his Chinese audience. But he never told the Chinese people what the American rule of law meant for ordinary American people. The American population only accounts for five percent of the world’s population. But American prisons hold twenty five percent of the world’s prison population. On top of that ten million Americans, one in thirty, are in jail, waiting for trial. Many American prisons are overcrowded and states like California have had to prematurely release criminals because federal judges have ordered prisons to solve the overcrowding problems.

Gary Locke has been interfering with Chinese domestic affairs intensively. He traveled to Tibet and Xinjiang, criticizing the Chinese Government’s human rights performances. The U.S. embassy has provided financial support to dissidents like Chen Guangchen, whom they encouraged to flee into the U.S. embassy in Beijing, rocking U.S. China relations. He used Chen Guangchen as a pawn to score political points for his career. Chen Guangchen set a police car on fire and interrupted traffic on high ways. He might have had legitimate grievances against the Chinese local government. But anybody did anything like what he did in China would be shot and killed by the police in the U.S.





Gary Locke was deeply involved in the Wang Lijun’s defection incident. In his farewell speech, he pointed out that Wang Lijun incident has changed political course of history in China. Ever since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the U.S. Government and American Elite have been trying to change the course of the People’s Republic of China, to serve their best interests in the world. Sometimes they were not successful. But in regard to Wang Lijun’s incident they succeeded. The world does not know what role Gary Locke played in the incident yet. But in light of the inconsistent stories he presented at the different stages of the incident as things unraveled, his role has to be a dishonorable one. One time, he said that Wang Lijun came to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu for a scheduled official meeting. Later, he said that Wang Lijun was in the consulate seeking political asylum. What he has been trying to hide?



