James R. Lilley

Who was James R. Lilley?

James Roderick Lilley; 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, he learned Mandarin at a young age before his family moved back to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. Lilley served in the United States Army before earning an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a masters 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 as Ambassador to South Korea. Following 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 relations between the United States and China.