Christopher Hill | |
---|---|
United States Ambassador to Serbia | |
Assumed office March 31, 2022 | |
President | Joe Biden |
Preceded by | Anthony Godfrey |
United States Ambassador to Iraq | |
In office April 24,2009 –August 10,2010 | |
President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Ryan Crocker |
Succeeded by | James Franklin Jeffrey |
23rd Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs | |
In office April 8,2005 –April 20,2009 | |
President | George W. Bush Barack Obama |
Preceded by | James A. Kelly |
Succeeded by | Kurt M. Campbell |
United States Ambassador to South Korea | |
In office September 1,2004 –April 8,2005 | |
President | George W. Bush |
Preceded by | Thomas C. Hubbard |
Succeeded by | Alexander R. Vershbow |
United States Ambassador to Poland | |
In office July 27,2000 –April 14,2004 | |
President | Bill Clinton George W. Bush |
Preceded by | Daniel Fried |
Succeeded by | Victor Ashe |
United States Ambassador to Macedonia | |
In office July 29,1996 –August 2,1999 | |
President | Bill Clinton |
Preceded by | Victor Comras (acting) |
Succeeded by | M. Michael Einik |
United States Ambassador to Albania Acting | |
In office October 1,1991 –December 21,1991 | |
President | George H. W. Bush |
Preceded by | Hugh Gladney Grant (1939) |
Succeeded by | William Edwin Ryerson |
Personal details | |
Born | Paris,France | August 10,1952
Spouse | Julie |
Education | Bowdoin College (BA) Naval War College (MA) |
Nickname | Bulldozer [1] |
Christopher Robert Hill (born August 10,1952) is an American diplomat who is United States Ambassador to Serbia. Previously,he was George W. Ball Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York,the Chief Advisor to the Chancellor for Global Engagement and Professor of the Practice in Diplomacy at the University of Denver. Prior to this position,he was the Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the university,a position he held from September 2010 to December 2017.
Hill's father was a diplomat in the Foreign Service:Hill was born in Paris, [2] and as a child,he traveled with his family to many countries. [3] After American diplomats were expelled from Haiti,Hill's family moved to Little Compton,Rhode Island [3] where Hill attended Moses Brown School in Providence,Rhode Island,graduating in 1970. [4] He then went on to study at Bowdoin College,earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1974. [5]
Hill was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon from 1974 to 1976. [6] Hill credits his work with the Peace Corps for teaching him his first lessons in diplomacy. [6] As a volunteer,Hill worked with credit unions and when he discovered that one board of directors had stolen 60 percent of their members' money,he reported on the malfeasance to their members,who promptly re-elected them because the board reflected carefully balanced tribal interests and it really did not matter to the members if the board directors ran a good credit union or not. [6] Hill said the lesson was that "When something's happened,it's happened for a reason and you do your best to understand that reason. But don't necessarily think you can change it." [6] Hill took the Foreign Service exam while he was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon. [3]
Hill received a master's degree from the Naval War College in 1994. [7] He speaks Polish,Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian. [7]
Hill joined the State Department in 1977. [8] Hill served as Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Embassy of the United States in Seoul from 1983 to 1985. [8] When he returned to Korea in 2004 as Ambassador,he began by saying "I was here for three years in the 1980s,one has to be a little careful about drawing on too much experience from so long ago. So,even though I'll certainly draw on my experience from the 1980s,I think I also need to do an awful lot of listening to people to understand what has been going on lately." [8]
Hill served as the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia from 1996 to 1999,Special Envoy to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999,Ambassador to Poland from 2000 to 2004,and ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2004 to 2005 before being appointed as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. [7] While on a fellowship with the American Political Science Association,Hill served as a member of the staff of Congressman Stephen Solarz. [7]
In November 2006 President George W. Bush nominated Hill for the grade of career minister,the second-highest rank for career diplomats. [9] The elite title is one step below career ambassador. [9]
Hill was part of the team that negotiated the Bosnia peace settlement. [3] While working on Balkan issues,Hill worked closely with Richard Holbrooke,serving as his deputy at the Dayton Peace Talks in 1995. Holbrooke described Hill as "brilliant,fearless and argumentative" in his book on the Dayton negotiations and said that Hill manages to be both "very cool and very passionate." The combination,Holbrooke said,enhances Hill's "extremely good negotiating skills." [6] Hill said the negotiations with the Bosnians,Serbs and Croats were successful because all the parties "were all ready to settle.' [3]
Hill had a diplomatic failure as special envoy to Kosovo [3] "because the Serbs were not ready to relinquish their stranglehold on Kosovo,so we ended up in a NATO bombing campaign." [3] "Like a lot of things in life:you've got to do everything you can do" Hill said,to ensure "that you have left no stone unturned,that you have really tried." [3]
On February 14,2005,Hill was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. [7]
In the first visit to North Korea by a senior American official in over five years,Hill flew into Pyongyang on June 21,2007,for a two-day visit where he was warmly greeted by Ri Gun,the North's deputy nuclear negotiator at the airport. [10] "We want to get the six-party process moving",Mr. Hill said. [10] "We hope that we can make up for some of the time that we lost this spring,and so I'm looking forward to good discussions about that." [10] The visit had been organized in secrecy. [10] Hill had been visiting Tokyo and flew to South Korea and then on to Pyongyang on a small jet. [10] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed regional allies Japan and South Korea just before Hill's departure from Tokyo. [10]
On July 14,2007,North Korea informed Hill that they had shut down the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and admitted an international inspection team. [11] Hill cautioned that the shutdown was "just the first step." [11] Verifying the declaration will be difficult,because for now the inspectors are limited to the Yongbyon complex. [11]
On September 3,2007 The New York Times reported that Hill met in Geneva for two days of one-on-one negotiations with Kim Kye-gwan,who heads the North Korean negotiating team,and that North Korea had agreed to disable its main nuclear fuel production plant by the end of 2007 and to account for all of its nuclear programs to international monitors. [12] North Korea had also agreed to turn off its main nuclear reactor this summer. [12] "One thing that we agreed on is that the D.P.R.K. will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year,2007",Hill told reporters. [12]
On December 20,2007,the Korea Times reported that Kathleen Stephens,adviser to Hill at the State Department in the office of East Asia and Pacific Affairs,had been appointed as the next ambassador to South Korea. [13] Sources said that Hill had recommended Stephens for the ambassadorial position for her understanding and experiences on Korean affairs. [13] Stephens served as an advisor to Hill during the North Korean nuclear talks,and reportedly was working on a peace treaty for the Korean Peninsula. [13]
On January 8,2008 The New York Times reported that North Korea had missed a deadline to submit an inventory of its nuclear arms programs and that Hill said that failure to meet a deadline should be confronted with patience and perseverance. [14] "They were prepared to give a declaration which wasn't going to be complete and correct and we felt that it was better for them to give us a complete one even if it's going to be a late one",said Hill. [14]
On February 7,2008,Hill told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that talks with North Korea are at a "critical,challenging" point. [15] Washington has refused to remove North Korea from its terrorism blacklist until the promised list of its nuclear efforts is provided. [15] "Let me be clear",Hill said. [15] " 'Complete and correct' means complete and correct. This declaration must include all nuclear weapons,programs,materials and facilities,including clarification of any proliferation activities." [15]
On March 2,2008,Hill said in an interview in Beijing that US diplomatic relations with Korea were possible before the end of the Bush administration if Korea completely dismantled its nuclear program. [16] "We've told them we are not prepared to do that until they give up their nuclear materials",said Hill. [16] "We can begin the process of discussing what we are going to do,whether we are going to open embassies,that sort of thing. But we will not have diplomatic relations with a nuclear North Korea." [16]
On April 11,2008 The Washington Post reported that a tentative deal has been reached with North Korea concerning a range of nuclear activities and the lifting of sanctions against North Korea. [17] The agreement would include North Korea's disabling of its main nuclear facility and a complete accounting of North Korea's plutonium. [17] "We are trying to focus on the plutonium as we try to resolve our suspicions on uranium enrichment",said chief U.S. negotiator Christopher R. Hill. [17] "That's where the bombs are. We don't have suspicions about plutonium;we have cold,hard facts about plutonium." [17]
Although Hill is not well known in the United States,he has become a celebrity in China as chief envoy in talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. [18] Part of the reason is that during negotiations Hill speaks every morning and evening to the media and has an easygoing manner,while his North Korean counterpart,Kim Kye Gwan,gives only occasional media access. [18]
Hill says that the six party talks with North Korea have opened the door for fruitful dealings between the US and China in other areas. [3] "We've worked diplomatically with them shoulder to shoulder. We haven't done this sort of thing before with China",says Hill. [3] "At some point we have to figure out a way to deal with 1.3 billion people,and I think the six-party process has been a good one for that." [3]
Hill said in an interview on April 21,2008,in the Seattle Times that the United States' relationship with China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. [19] "I would say the China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship we have in the world",says Hill. [19] "We have some 57 dialogues with Chinese counterparts,ranging from global warming to economic and trade issues. I would say we spend a great deal of time and attention on things Chinese with the understanding that in the long run we have to have a good working relationship with 1.3 billion people." [19]
Hill says that China has been an active participant in the six-party talks. [19] "China is a very active participant. It's an area we have succeeded in working with them very productively and pragmatically on an area of mutual concern",says Hill. [19] "China looks at North Korea in very different ways from how we look at them. You have to recall they were a historical partner and ally. Chinese veterans associations trace their roots to the Korean War. All that said,China is very much convinced that North Korea needs to give up its nuclear ambitions." [19]
Hill says that recent events in China and protests surrounding the torch relay for the Olympics may not result in improved human rights. [19] "The Chinese people are very proud of hosting the Olympics. This sense of pride transcends political views within China",says Hill. [19] "Even people who are extremely critical of their own government,and there are many Chinese who are very critical of their own government,even those people are filled with a sense of pride that China is hosting these Olympics. Many of them have taken the view that those who would somehow boycott the Olympics are doing so out of a desire to keep China down and otherwise humiliate and embarrass China. So it is an issue with great public resonance in China,going well beyond the question of the government." [19]
Hill set a new precedent by closely approaching South Korea's contemporary culture and society. He was the first U.S. ambassador to pay respects at Gwangju's Mangwoldong May 18 National Cemetery for thousands of civilians who stood up for democracy and the hundreds who were massacred by the then-military government in May 1980. Many South Koreans suspected that the U.S. government allowed the attack,and no senior U.S. official had ever visited Mangwoldong before. According to Tami Overby,a senior official with the American Chamber of Commerce in South Korea,Hill served the shortest term in her 18 years of living in Seoul but had the most impact. [6]
In May 2006, Hill described the New Zealand's 1985 anti-nuclear legislation as "a relic", and signaled that the US wanted a closer defence relationship with New Zealand. He also praised New Zealand's involvement in Afghanistan and reconstruction in Iraq. "Rather than trying to change each other's minds on the nuclear issue... I think we should focus on things we can make work", Hill said adding that the US would not demand to "put ships back into New Zealand." [20]
US President Barack Obama nominated Christopher Hill for the post of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq on March 11, 2009. After having faced opposition from Republican Senators such as Sam Brownback, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham, Hill was approved on April 20 to be the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq by the Senate with 73 votes for, and 23 against. [21]
Hill extended his tenure in Iraq, totaling 16 months, postponing his own retirement from a career in diplomacy. While there, he was charged with reaching an agreement about the formation of an Iraqi-run government. Unfortunately, Hill couldn't break the months-long stalemate and called Iraq his most formidable challenge. [22]
President Joe Biden announced Hill as his nominee to be the U.S. Ambassador to Serbia on October 14, 2021, and his nomination was sent to the Senate on October 28. Hearings on his nomination were held before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 14, 2021. The committee favorably reported his nomination on January 12, 2022. On March 10, 2022, he was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote. [23] He presented his credentials to President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic on March 31, 2022. [24]
Hill was a recipient of the Robert C. Frasure Award for Peace Negotiations for his work on the Kosovo crisis. [7] The award is named for Hill's friend Bob Frasure, a fellow American diplomat killed in 1995 in Bosnia.[ citation needed ]
Hill was granted an award from the Macedonian Government to be honorary citizen because of his service as ambassador in Skopje and building up the U.S. - Macedonian relations.
In January 2006, Hill gave a lecture entitled "U.S. Policy in East Asia and the Pacific" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.
In 2005, Hill was honored with the Naval War College Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award [25] and in February 2008, Hill was awarded the "Building Bridges" Award by the Pacific Century Institute. The recipients are recognized as people who have enhanced relations between Americans and Asians and who exemplify PCI's commitment to building bridges to a better future.
In 2012, Hill was appointed as an honorary Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2013 New Year Honours. [26]
In a September 8, 2016 segment with anchors Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist on MSNBC's Morning Joe that appeared following 2016 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's appearance on the news program that same day, Hill criticized Johnson for his lack of knowledge on the location and significance of Aleppo, Syria during the earlier interview with the hosts and Mike Barnicle. He mocked Johnson for his apparent confusion and "blank stare," proclaiming that he would likely be forevermore known as "Aleppo Johnson" and that it would probably be the end of his presidential bid, but himself erroneously referred to Aleppo as "the capital of ISIS" despite having previously served as the US Ambassador to neighboring Iraq. [27] While Scarborough, Brzezinski, and Geist did not correct this verbal mistake on-air, numerous news outlets and commentators noted Hill's own gaffe in their coverage of Johnson, and critiqued him for his hypocrisy. [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33]
In March 2018, Hill referred to the passage of the anti-defamation legislation by the Polish parliament as "revenge of the peasants". [34]
Hill is married to the former Julie Ann Ryczek, a school teacher and health and nutrition advocate from Treasure Island, Florida. He has three grown children, Nathaniel, Amelia and Clara. [35] Hill speaks Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Macedonian and French.
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. It was used in Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the September 11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency. He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.
Relations between North Korea and the United States have been historically hostile. The two countries have no formal diplomatic relations. Instead, they have adopted an indirect diplomatic arrangement using neutral intermediaries. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is the US protecting power and provides limited consular services to U.S. citizens. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), does not have an embassy in Washington, DC, but is represented in the United States through its mission to the United Nations in New York City which serves as North Korea's de facto embassy.
Iran and the United States have had no formal diplomatic relations since 7 April 1980. Instead, Pakistan serves as Iran's protecting power in the United States, while Switzerland serves as the United States' protecting power in Iran. Contacts are carried out through the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the US Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. In August 2018, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei banned direct talks with the United States.
Robert Dean Blackwill is a retired American diplomat, author, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and lobbyist. Blackwill served as the United States Ambassador to India under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 and as United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq from 2003 to 2004, where he was a liaison between Paul Bremer and Condoleezza Rice.
The six-party talks aimed to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. There was a series of meetings with six participating states in Beijing:
Kim Kye-gwan is a North Korean diplomat. His official position was First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which he was promoted immediately before the Korean Workers' Party Conference of 28 September 2010. He is the leading figure in international talks over the country's nuclear weapons program, including the six-party talks in Beijing.
Anna Chennault, born Chan Sheng Mai, 陳香梅, also known as Anna Chan Chennault or Anna Chen Chennault, was a war correspondent and prominent Republican member of the U.S. China Lobby. She was married to American World War II aviator General Claire Chennault.
Two rounds of North Korean missile tests were conducted on July 5, 2006. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea reportedly fired at least seven separate missiles. These included one long-range Taepodong-2 missile and short-range Scud derived missiles including the enlarged Nodong missile. The Taepodong-2 was estimated by United States intelligence agencies as having a potential range reaching as far as Alaska, although this missile failed after about 42 seconds of flight.
Ural Alexis Johnson was a United States diplomat.
Wendy Ruth Sherman is an American diplomat who served as the United States deputy secretary of state from April 2021 to July 2023. She was a professor of the practice of public leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group, and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Condoleezza Rice served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, under President George W. Bush, from 2005 to 2009, overseeing the department that conducted the foreign policy of George W. Bush. She was preceded in office by Colin Powell, and succeeded by Hillary Clinton. As secretary of state she traveled widely and initiated many diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Bush administration.
Ri Yong-ho is a North Korean politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Korea from 2016 to 2020.
U.S. foreign policy during the presidency of Donald Trump (2017–2021) was noted for its unpredictability and reneging on prior international commitments, upending diplomatic conventions, embracing political and economic brinkmanship with most adversaries, and stronger relations with traditional allies. Trump's "America First" policy pursued nationalist foreign policy objectives and prioritized bilateral relations over multinational agreements. As president, Trump described himself as a nationalist while espousing views that have been characterized as isolationist, non-interventionist, and protectionist, although the "isolationist" label has been disputed, including by Trump himself, and periods of his political career have been described by the alternative term “semi-isolationist.” He personally praised some populist, neo-nationalist, illiberal, and authoritarian governments, while antagonizing others, even as administration diplomats nominally continued to pursue pro-democracy ideals abroad.
The 2017–2018 North Korea crisis was a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States throughout 2017. The crisis began early in 2017 when North Korea conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests that demonstrated the country's ability to launch ballistic missiles beyond its immediate region, suggesting their nuclear weapons capability was developing at a faster rate than had been assessed by U.S. intelligence. Both countries started exchanging increasingly heated rhetoric, including nuclear threats and personal attacks between the two leaders, which, compounded by a joint U.S.–South Korea military exercise undertaken in August and North Korea's sixth nuclear test in September, raised international tensions in the region and beyond and stoked fears about a possible nuclear conflict between the two nations. In addition, North Korea also threatened Australia twice with nuclear strikes throughout the year for their allegiance with the United States. International relations lecturer and former government strategist Van Jackson said in the book On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War that it was the closest the world had come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit, commonly known as the Singapore Summit, was a summit meeting between North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, held at the Capella Hotel, Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12, 2018. It was the first-ever meeting between leaders of North Korea and the United States. They signed a joint statement, agreeing to security guarantees for North Korea, new peaceful relations, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, recovery of soldiers' remains, and follow-up negotiations between high-level officials. Both leaders also met separately with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Choe Son-hui is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Korea. Previously the First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, she was appointed Minister on 11 June 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the position and is one of few North Korean women holding a high-level office.
The Peace Treaty on Korean Peninsula is a proposed settlement to formally end military hostilities on the Korean Peninsula as a follow-up to the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement implemented by the United Nations after the Korean War. During the inter-Korean summit on April 27, 2018, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in signed the Panmunjom Declaration; the declaration involved an agreement about mutual efforts and action items for transforming the armistice agreement into a peace treaty with the cooperation of the United States and China. During the 2018 Trump–Kim summit, US president Donald Trump and Kim signed a Joint Statement which reaffirmed the Panmunjom Declaration. On November 23, 2023, North Korea terminated its 2018 agreement with South Korea.
The 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit, commonly known as the Hanoi Summit, was a two-day summit meeting between North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. president Donald Trump, held at the French Colonial Hôtel Métropole in Hanoi, Vietnam, during February 27–28, 2019. It was the second meeting between the leaders of North Korea and the United States following their first meeting in Singapore the year prior.
The 2018–19 Korean peace process was initiated to resolve the long-running Korean conflict and denuclearize Korea. International concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons came to a head in 2017, when they posed a direct threat to the United States. At the same time, Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea with the promise of returning to the Sunshine Policy, favoring good relations with North Korea. A series of summits were held between North Korea's Kim Jong Un, South Korea's Moon, and Donald Trump of the United States. Trump became the first sitting US President to meet a North Korean leader and to enter North Korean territory. Kim became the first North Korean leader to enter South Korean territory. Moon became the first South Korean President to give a speech in North Korea. In parallel to this, a number of cultural exchanges began. Tensions were lowered on both sides of the DMZ.
The 2019 Koreas–United States DMZ Summit was a one-day summit held at the Korean Demilitarized Zone between North Korean chairman Kim Jong Un, U.S. president Donald Trump, and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, following the 2019 G20 Osaka summit. Trump briefly stepped over the border at 3:45 PM (GMT+9) on June 30, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president had set foot on North Korean soil. It was also the second time since the end of the Korean War in 1953 that a North Korean leader entered the South's territory, following the April 2018 inter-Korean summit. Senior White House advisors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner also attended the summit, with Ivanka Trump and U.S. envoy to South Korea Harry B. Harris Jr. holding a meeting with Kim later broadcast on North Korean television.