I'm in Beijing for a conference hosted by the East-West Center and Peking University which started this morning with a keynote speech by U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke (the first Chinese-American ambassador to China).
Locke has been the American ambassador to China for a year now and seems to be fairly popular with the Chinese, at least to the extent that they're aware of him. At first, many Chinese were puzzled by some of Locke' actions, not in his diplomatic role, but as a human being. As a high-level diplomat, Locke seemed to be behaving like an average person - waiting in line to buy coffee at Starbucks, flying economy class and carrying his own bag. This goes completely against the Chinese view of diplomats who are and expect to be treated like royalty. The Chinese with obsession with status and showing off that status can't be adequately described in words - you have to observe it to begin to appreciate its importance.
Locke's average guy persona certainly earned him some initial admiration among many Chinese as reflected by postings on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging/social networking site. According to a Washington Post article, the reason for the Chinese fascination with Locke is that "they see everything their own leaders are not. A Chinese parking lot security guard interviewed in this article stated that, after seeing a picture of Locke with his wife and children in an airport carrying their luggage, "Its unimaginable for a high Chinese official to move abroad like that."
Locke's speech this morning at the East-West Center Conference was quite diplomatic, mostly stressing the need for cooperation between China and the U.S. He did, however, make a few controversial points - for example, suggesting that America's role in the security of Asia is readily acknowledged as a positive one. I'm pretty sure that quite a few Chinese (and other Asians) would disagree with this and instead wish that America would stick more to the role of minding its own business.
There were quite a large number of Chinese academics in the audience as well as those from the U.S. and other countries and Locke's speech seemed to go over pretty well. I'm not sure if he carried his own bag while at the conference, but I did notice one U.S. diplomatic vehicle parked outside the conference center which looked less ostentatious than the row of Audis and Mercedes (the two most popular automobile brands of Chinese officials). So, I don't think its too likely that Locke's average guy image will be able to bridge the Chinese-American cultural divide in the near future.
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