President-elect Joe Biden plans to appoint Kurt Campbell, a senior Obama administration official, to a new White House post as director of Asian affairs, the Financial Times said on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
One of the people familiar with the matter said Biden is preparing to appoint the former State Department assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific for a major reason, because he wants to integrate China policy among government agencies and have a senior Asia expert at the helm. The person familiar with the matter also said Biden realizes that every government department should work harder on China than it has in the past, and that this is no longer just the responsibility of traditional foreign policy, defense and economic-related departments.
Campbell is considered one of the tougher Democrats on China, the report noted. He said in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine two years ago that U.S. foreign policy departments have misjudged China’s development path over the years, and that Washington needs to do a “sober rethink” on its China policy.
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