Mr. Huntsman Goes to Beijing – General

President Barack Obama will replace John Huntsman as Ambassador to China with Gary Locke. This is generally good: Locke is an experienced Chinese-American politician with an understanding of China and its history. No big deal. Non-white people have earned positions of power in the western world for some time. However, when will the Chinese appoint an ambassador of 'laowai' descent, to any country?

It seems Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to China and possible 2012 presidential contender, has ruffled a few feathers by appearing Sunday in a crowd outside a McDonald’s in Beijing where an anonymous online appeal had urged people to try to start a Chinese “Jasmine Revolution.”

President Barack Obama nominated Utah’s Republican Governor Jon Huntsman to be U.S. ambassador to China, the world’s most populous country and the biggest foreign owner of U.S. debt. The selection follows through on Obama’s pledge to seek bipartisan cooperation.

US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman resigned on Monday, amid reports that he might seek the Republican nomination in 2012 and try to deprive President Barack Obama of a second term. Huntsman, a former Utah governor, handed his resignation letter to the White House and the resignation will be effective from April 30.

Ambassador Jon Huntsman has been the U.S. envoy to China for barely four months, but he has already confronted a daunting agenda: a presidential summit, fraught climate talks in Copenhagen, a confusing mix of setbacks and progress on human rights, and growing pressure on China to do more to defuse nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea.

To the extent Republican presidential candidate and former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is known to the public, it is for being “fluent in Chinese.” David Letterman has joked, “Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is fluent in Chinese. ...

Republican presidential contender Jon Huntsman says his opponents’ policies would start a trade war with China.

Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, says tough talk and new tariffs aren’t the answer. And during Saturday’s debate, he told Mitt Romney in Mandarin Chinese that he doesn’t understand the situation.

New U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke (駱家輝) with his wife and three children met the media at his ambassadorial residence in Beijing. On August 1st, Locke was sworn in as the first Chinese American on this position in American history.

Yet another American politician has caused a stir online after photos of him doing shocking things surfaced on a microblogging service. The politician: newly sworn-in China envoy Gary Locke. The microblogging service: China's Sina Weibo. The surprising behavior: Buying his own coffee and carrying his own luggage before flying to Beijing.