James Stapleton Roy (; born June 16, 1935) is a former senior

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

specializing in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

n affairs. A fluent

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

speaker, Roy spent much of his career in

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

, where his assignments included

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

(twice),

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

(twice),

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, and

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

. He also specialized in

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

affairs and served in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

at the height of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. Ambassador Roy served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research from 1999 to 2000.

Early life and education

Roy was born in

Nanking, China Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

, where his father, Andrew Tod Roy, was a Presbyterian missionary and teacher who stayed on in China until he was denounced by the new government and expelled in 1951. His brother was David Tod Roy, a noted scholar and translator of Chinese literature. While in Shanghai, he attended Shanghai American School (SAS), but left China and SAS when the school was closed in 1949 following the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

takeover of Shanghai. He attended Mount Hermon School (now

Northfield Mount Hermon Northfield Mount Hermon School, often called NMH, is a co-educational college-preparatory school, preparatory school in Gill, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is a member of the Eight Schools Association. Present day NMH offers nearly 20 ...

) and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he was elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

and graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

with an A.B. in history in 1956 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Revisionists and the Coming of the War to America."

Career

Roy rose to become a three-time

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

, serving as the top U.S. envoy in Singapore (1984–86), the People's Republic of China (1991–95), and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

(1996–99). In 1996, he was promoted to the rank of

career ambassador Career ambassador is a personal rank of Foreign Service Officers within the United States Department of State Senior Foreign Service. The rank of career ambassador is awarded by nomination of the President and confirmation by the United States Sena ...

, the highest rank in the

United States Foreign Service The United States Foreign Service is the primary personnel system used by the diplomatic service of the United States federal government, under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of over 13,000 professionals carryi ...

. Roy was Vice Chairman of

Kissinger Associates Kissinger Associates, Inc. is a New York City-based international geopolitical consulting firm, founded and run by Henry Kissinger since 1982. The firm assists its clients in identifying strategic partners and investment opportunities and advisi ...

, Inc., Chairman of the Hopkins-Nanjing Advisory Council established to assist Hopkins' in its partnership with Nanjing University that jointly manages the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (a graduate degree granting institution on the Nanjing University campus in Nanjing, China), and a director of

ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. The company has operations in 15 countries and has production in ...

and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. He is also a trustee of the

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...

and Co-Chair of The United States - Indonesia Society ( USINDO). In August 2008, Roy was named director of the Kissinger Institute for Chinese-U.S. Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He sits on the advisory board for Washington, D.C.-based non-profit

America Abroad Media ''America Abroad'' was a monthly documentary radio program produced by America Abroad Media (AAM), a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization. The program was distributed by Public Radio International (PRI) and broadcast on public radio stati ...

. Every spring since 2014, The J Stapleton Roy Award is awarded to two upperclassmen who embody a passion for social sciences, exhibited in and outside the classroom, throughout their SASPX career. Recent award winners include Victor Vogelsang and Shelly Huang(2018), Donna Qi and Matthew Song(2019) and Harmony Wang and Teresa Shao (2022). I
remarks
at Pomona College in September 2020, he "claimed that the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

and the Hong Kong protests of 2019 “went too far,” while also denying that China asengaged in a genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province." In July 2022, Roy helped found a group of U.S. business and policy leaders who share the goal of constructively engaging with China in order to improve U.S.-China relations.

References

External links

*
Video and text of an April 2007 lecture by J. Stapleton Roy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, J. Stapleton 1935 births Ambassadors of the United States to Indonesia Living people ConocoPhillips people Ambassadors of the United States to China United States Career Ambassadors United States Assistant Secretaries of State Princeton University alumni American expatriates in China Assistant Secretaries of State for Intelligence and Research Children of American missionaries in China Northfield Mount Hermon School alumni United States Foreign Service personnel

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

External links