James R. Lilley, 81, Envoy in Tiananmen Era, Dies
WASHINGTON — James R. Lilley, a former intelligence agent and ambassador to China who viewed that country with a rare blend of pragmatism and love because of his childhood there, died Thursday at a Washington hospital. He was 81.
Mr. Lilley, who lived in Washington, died of complications linked to prostate cancer, said his son Jeffrey of Silver Spring, Md.
Under his old friend President George H. W. Bush, Mr. Lilley was ambassador in Beijing from 1989 to 1991, a period marked by the brutal suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square. “It has been called, and it was, a massacre,” Mr. Lilley declared in “China Hands,” his 2004 memoir, written with his son Jeffrey and published by PublicAffairs.
Mr. Lilley was familiar with the students’ grievances: only days after arriving in Beijing in 1989, he took to riding his bicycle on the streets to glean firsthand knowledge of what was going on.
But while he sympathized with the Chinese students’ yearning for more openness and “an end to cronyism and corruption,” and appreciated the need for the United States to condemn the bloodshed, he argued against any suggestion that Washington’s relationship with China should be cut off or cut back.
“I wanted to make the point that the United States had to stay engaged with China for strategic reasons,” he wrote of his frequent television appearances after the tanks rolled into the square in June 1989. “America, I insisted, could contribute in constructive ways to a more open China.”
Mr. Lilley was almost alone in diplomatic circles for the respect he enjoyed among both the Chinese Communist leaders and the Taiwanese.
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Mr. Lilley, who lived in Washington, died of complications linked to prostate cancer, said his son Jeffrey of Silver Spring, Md.
Under his old friend President George H. W. Bush, Mr. Lilley was ambassador in Beijing from 1989 to 1991, a period marked by the brutal suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square. “It has been called, and it was, a massacre,” Mr. Lilley declared in “China Hands,” his 2004 memoir, written with his son Jeffrey and published by PublicAffairs.
Mr. Lilley was familiar with the students’ grievances: only days after arriving in Beijing in 1989, he took to riding his bicycle on the streets to glean firsthand knowledge of what was going on.
But while he sympathized with the Chinese students’ yearning for more openness and “an end to cronyism and corruption,” and appreciated the need for the United States to condemn the bloodshed, he argued against any suggestion that Washington’s relationship with China should be cut off or cut back.
“I wanted to make the point that the United States had to stay engaged with China for strategic reasons,” he wrote of his frequent television appearances after the tanks rolled into the square in June 1989. “America, I insisted, could contribute in constructive ways to a more open China.”
Mr. Lilley was almost alone in diplomatic circles for the respect he enjoyed among both the Chinese Communist leaders and the Taiwanese.