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3 June 2024 (Monday)
New AIT Director for Taiwan
Crazy Bitch Replaced by Sober and Judicious Leader
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - The new Director (de facto U.S. Ambassador) at the American Institute In Taiwan/AIT (de facto U.S. Embassy), Raymond F. Greene will replace Sandra Oudkirk later this summer.
Oudkirk began her position in July 2021 and focused her tenure on human rights, DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), and women’s rights. An odd agenda for a democratic country with virtually no crime, the first in Asia with same-sex marriage, and, for Oudkirk, a bit self-serving as the first female to serve as AIT director.
She allowed the Rainbow Flag to be flown along with the U.S. Flag above AIT for a day to celebrate LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer].
In fact, in all of the hundreds of images of Oudkirk on the Internet, there is not a single one with her wearing the U.S. Flag lapel pin. See Greene’s photo above.
Oudkirk appeared oblivious of the existential threat of a Chinese invasion of the island democracy of 24 million and instead was rumored to have worn the Rainbow Flag like a Super Hero cape running the hallways of AIT in the wee hours of the night twerking (or perhaps not).
Hopefully, Greene, with his Taiwanese wife, Yawen KO (柯雅文), will have pragmatic real-world experiences dealing with economic, military, and political issues from their combined life lessons in China, Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan.
Greene served as director of Japan and East Asian Economic Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House, then director of the Office of Economic Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum’s Economic Committee.
Compared to Oudkirk’s “Woke” doctrines and policies, Taiwan deserves a qualified diplomat in Taipei with a variety of skill sets.
He is no stranger to Taiwan having served as the deputy director at AIT from 2018 to 2021.
A retired U.S. State Department officer stated:
He gets high marks for having been deputy chief of mission in Japan. In that capacity, he was chargé d'affaires ad interim (acting ambassador) for half a year prior to the arrival of Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel has gone out of his way to praise Greene for bringing him up to speed on Japan and how embassies work. At the embassy in Tokyo, where the ambassador has not been a career officer for over half a century, it falls to the deputy to manage the day-to-day work of the embassy. And the embassy in Tokyo is one of the largest, with 35-40 different agencies under its roof.
I deduce from his bio that he much prefers being overseas to being a bureaucrat in Washington. More power to him. I'm struck in looking at his background by how little Washington policy experience he has, relatively speaking, which is unusual -- extremely unusual -- for a person named to be DCM in Tokyo and head of AIT in Taiwan. I guess his time at NSC counts for policy experience (of course it does), but the NSC person doing Japan and economic policy is not typically very high profile. Perhaps he impressed the right people.
Here is the official bio posted at the U.S. Embassy Tokyo website:
Deputy Chief of Mission Raymond F. Greene:
Raymond F. Greene assumed duties at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on July 17, 2021, serving as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim until January 22, 2022. Prior to this assignment, he was the Deputy Director of AIT.
Greene is a member of the State Department’s Senior Foreign Service with the personal rank of Minister-Counselor and has spent his entire 28-year career advancing U.S. diplomatic, economic, and security engagement with the Indo-Pacific region.
In Washington, Greene was Director for Japan and East Asian Economic Affairs at NSC and Director of the Office of Economic Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In the latter capacity, Mr. Greene was elected as Chair of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
Overseas, Greene served as U.S. Consul General in Chengdu, China and Okinawa, Japan. Earlier assignments included Chief of the Political-Military Affairs Unit at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Deputy Chief of the Political Section at AIT Taipei, and as a political officer in Tokyo and Manila. Greene was the first Baker-Kato Diplomatic Exchange Fellow at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo.
He also was assigned as a State Department Faculty Advisor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Greene holds a B.A. (Government/Japanese) and M.P.M. (International Security and Economic Policy) from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the recipient of the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the Ryozo Kato Award for Advancing the U.S.-Japan Alliance, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy (Taiwan), and several State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards.
Before joining the State Department, Greene was a researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC and spent a year in Yokohama on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program. Greene speaks Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.