Biden Taps Michelle Kwan and Caroline Kennedy for Ambassador Posts

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Politics|Biden Taps Michelle Kwan and Caroline Kennedy for Ambassador Posts

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/us/politics/michelle-kwan-caroline-kennedy-ambassador.html

Ms. Kennedy, nominated to beryllium ambassador to Australia, and Ms. Kwan, nominated to beryllium the envoy to Belize, were salient Biden supporters during the 2020 run season.

Caroline Kennedy, who was the ambassador to Japan nether  President Barack Obama, is acceptable   to beryllium  nominated to beryllium  ambassador to Australia.
Credit...Brian Snyder/Reuters

Jim Tankersley

Dec. 15, 2021, 7:28 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — President Biden said connected Wednesday that helium would nominate 2 high-profile women who were aboriginal supporters of his candidacy, the erstwhile ambassador Caroline Kennedy and the decorated fig skater Michelle Kwan, to ambassadorships successful his administration.

The president tapped Ms. Kennedy, the girl of President John F. Kennedy and the ambassador to Japan nether President Barack Obama, to beryllium ambassador to Australia. He said helium would nominate Ms. Kwan, who earned Olympic metallic and bronze medals arsenic a skater earlier pursuing a vocation successful diplomacy and politics, to beryllium ambassador to Belize.

Ms. Kennedy, 64, endorsed Mr. Biden for president successful February 2020, successful the vigor of the Democratic primaries. She wrote successful a Boston Globe sentiment piece that Mr. Biden was “a president who tin bring radical together, who knows however to get things done astatine location and abroad, whose connection we tin number on, and who tin nurture the adjacent procreation of leaders.”

In a quality merchandise announcing her nomination, White House officials praised Ms. Kennedy’s tenure arsenic the first pistillate ambassador successful Japan from 2013 to 2017.

“She precocious the realignment of U.S. forces successful Okinawa,” they wrote, “promoted women’s empowerment successful Japan and accrued pupil speech betwixt the U.S. and Japan.”

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Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ms. Kwan, 41, joined Mr. Biden’s run squad successful 2019, agelong aft making a modulation from athletics to the governmental arena. She was named the country’s archetypal nationalist diplomacy envoy successful 2006 and spent a decennary traveling connected behalf of the State Department to conscionable with children astir the world.

Representative Judy Chu, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, noted successful a connection that Ms. Kwan would beryllium the archetypal Asian American pistillate to service arsenic the ambassador to Belize.

“I americium truthful gladsome that aft her vocation arsenic an Olympian, she volition present proceed to correspond the divers endowment of our country,” she said, adding, “I person nary uncertainty that she volition proceed to beryllium an fantabulous typical of our state successful her caller role.”

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