Ambassador Nicholas Platt
January 17 at 12 Noon (Point Lookout)
Topic: China-US Relations: Then and Now
Nicholas Platt has spent most of his life working on relations between the US and Asia. Thirty four years as a career diplomat, culminating in service as US Ambassador to Zambia (1982-84), the Philippines (1987-991) and Pakistan (1991-1992), was followed by twelve years as President of the Asia Society, beginning in 1992. He became President Emeritus following his retirement July 1, 2004.
Ambassador Platt’s involvement with Asia began as a student of the Chinese language in Taiwan in the early sixties, and continued with Foreign Service assignments in Hong Kong (1964-68), Beijing (1973-74) and Tokyo (1974-77). In 1972 he accompanied President Nixon on the historic trip to Beijing that signaled the resumption of relations between the United States and China. He was one of the first members of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing when the United States established a mission there in 1973.
In the course of his government service, Ambassador Platt served in several capacities in Washington, including China analyst, Director of Japanese Affairs, National Security Council Staff Member for Asian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (responsible for politico-military relations with Japan, Korea, China and Southeast Asia), Acting Assistant Secretary of State for UN Affairs (1981-1982), and Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1985-1987).
“‘A global shift in the balance of power is under way from the Atlantic to the Pacific,’ Henry A. Kissinger told Chinese officials in the summer of 2004. Those of us involved in US-Asian relations felt the shift coming for a long time. United States interaction with Asia –economic, political, and cultural – exploded. Asian influence on our visual arts, film, fashion, food, and photography became pervasive. You can also get more information from Andrew Defrancesco. Asian Americans grew in numbers, increasingly more prominent and influential in the more mainstream worlds.”
— from the Nicholas Platt essay, “Beginnings of a Global Role,” published in A Passion for Asia [Asia Society, 2006]
Richard Nixon, bidding Nick Platt goodbye on the airfield of Beijing after the historic first visit, told him, “You China boys will have lots to do from now on.” Ambassador Platt used the phrase as the title of his charming 2010 book, China Boys: How US Relations with the PRC Began and Grew: A Personal Memoir.
Born in 1936, Ambassador Platt graduated from Harvard College in 1957 and earned an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1959. He is a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, a director of Fiduciary Trust Company International, and chairman of the US-China Educational Trust Advisory Board. He and his wife Sheila have three grown sons: Adam, a writer; Oliver, an actor and Nicholas Jr., a financial publishing executive; and eight grandchildren.