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US State Department's top China official Rick Waters is stepping down

The head of a new US State Department unit tasked to coordinate efforts aimed at countering Beijing plans to step down next month, the department's second high-ranking official with a China portfolio to announce a departure in less than two weeks.

Rick Waters, head of the State Department's recently created Office of China Coordination, and known informally as its "China House", will leave the position just six months after it was established to manage what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called "the scale and the scope of the challenge" posed by the country.

The career State Department official will "rotate out" of the unit and the Office of Taiwan Coordination on June 23 "as part of the Department's normal summer transition process," according to a State Department spokesman.

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"He will remain a member of the senior foreign service, but we have no details on his next assignment at this time," the spokesman added.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman speaks in Washington in August 2021. Photo: AP alt=US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman speaks in Washington in August 2021. Photo: AP>

Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, weighed in on the move, asserting that "China House is already strengthening the [Biden] administration's work to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific and out-compete China".

"Rick is a strategic thinker who has skillfully advanced US policy on China, and I am profoundly grateful for his service to our country," he said. "We are in the process of selecting Rick's successor and hope to have an announcement as soon as possible."

The announcement about Waters followed news of US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman's retirement earlier this month.

Sherman, the highest-ranking State Department official from the Biden administration to have travelled to China, has been an instrumental member of US President Joe Biden's efforts to build an Indo-Pacific strategy that offers an alternative to China's economic influence and expanding military presence there.

Laura Rosenberger left her post as special assistant to Biden and the National Security Council's senior director for China and Taiwan to become chair of The American Institute in Taiwan - Washington's de facto embassy on the self-ruled island - just two months ago.

The departures come amid a revival of high-level talks between US and Chinese officials after a suspected spy balloon from China entered US airspace and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California earlier this year all but cut off such engagements.

Blinken postponed a planned trip to Beijing days before his departure in response to the balloon incident and China appeared to rebuff overtures from officials including US ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to reestablish talks.

Xie Feng, China's new ambassador to the US, addresses the media as he arrives at JFK airport in New York on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters alt=Xie Feng, China's new ambassador to the US, addresses the media as he arrives at JFK airport in New York on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters>

However, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and China's top diplomat Wang Yi unexpectedly announced that they held "candid" talks while in Vienna on Taiwan and the Russian war in Ukraine, the highest-level US-China engagement since presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met last year.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in an interview on Wednesday that she expects to meet with China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meeting in Detroit later this week.

The arrival in the US of China's new ambassador to Washington, Xie Feng, may further bolster bilateral engagement, although Xie's predecessor Qin Gang faced difficulties engaging with policymakers in Washington.

Xie, who oversaw the US portfolio in Beijing, had in recent months been flagged as the top candidate for the position, which had been vacant for almost five months.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.