When Gary Locke was nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to China, many Chinese were overjoyed, because Locke is a Chinese-American. Viewed as “one of us,” he was expected to have a better understanding of the concerns and interests of his ancestral country, and hence to play a more positive role in the bilateral relationship.
Yet from the day of his arrival in Beijing in August 2011 until his departure in early 2014, Locke apparently never really felt “at home” among his Chinese compatriots. The image of a humble and frugal American official — at ministerial rank by Chinese standards — who bought his own Starbucks coffee and carried his own luggage at airports, throws into sharp relief the privileged — and usually corrupt — lifestyle of many Chinese officials. Locke not only made PM2.5 a household word in China, but also had the misfortune of getting intimately — though unexpectedly — involved in Chinese domestic politics, when first the former police chief of Chongqing and then a blind lawyer named Chen Guangcheng sought political asylum from the United States.
Just two days before Locke’s departure, the state-run China News Service published an opinion piece entitled “Farewell, Gary Locke.” The author was undoubtedly inspired by one of Mao Zedong’s most famous works, “Farewell, Leighton Stewart,” which was a damning criticism of U.S. China policy during the Chinese civil war in the 1940s. In the article, Gary Locke was conveniently referred to as a “banana,” that is, white/American inside but yellow/Chinese outside. “But the skin of a banana will eventually rot, exposing the white inside, which will also rot and turn dark,” wrote the author, extending the metaphor. The article contends that Locke’s humble lifestyle as reported by the Chinese media was deliberately staged to embarrass Chinese officials and to incite discontent among the ordinary Chinese. “Unable to read his ancestral country’s language and ignorant about Chinese laws,” the author claimed, “Mr. Locke is nevertheless particularly fond of messing up with Chinese domestic politics.” The closing line of the article reads: “Goodbye smog, goodbye evil spirit. Farewell, Gary Locke.”
Ethan Stark
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