China Policy

Bio

Mark Lambert is State Department China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs. He oversees the Office of China Coordination and the Office of Taiwan Coordination. Mark has extensive experience in China, cross-Strait, and Asia Pacific affairs. He most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.  Earlier he established the International Organizations Bureau’s office aimed at protecting UN integrity from authoritarianism. As Special Envoy for North Korean Affairs, he participated in negotiations with the DPRK and devised and implemented a global pressure campaign to enforce UN Security Council Resolutions. As Director of the Office of Korean Affairs he helped shape the response to ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests conducted by North Korea. While Political Counselor in Hanoi he helped to devise a South China Sea maritime strategy and led a team that won recognition for dramatically improving U.S. relations with Vietnam. He served twice in Beijing, most recently managing U.S. political military affairs with China. Previously, he was named the State Department’s human rights officer of the year for devising a strategy to release Chinese political prisoners and promote religious freedom. He has served as Political Military officer in Bangkok and Tokyo and as a science and technology officer on the State Department’s Japan Desk. He was a weapons inspector in Iraq. His first tour was in Bogota, Colombia, during the era of Pablo Escobar. He received a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for helping to design and implement a plan to elect the leader of the World Intellectual Property Organization. He has been awarded for efforts bringing the United States and Vietnam closer together, for his voluntary efforts responding to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, for helping to shape the U.S. response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and for his work helping to resolve the 2001 EP-3 crisis involving a U.S. naval aircraft forced down on China’s Hainan Island. He has studied Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Spanish. He is married to Laura Stone, a senior State Department official. They have two daughters.