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New US Ambassador says hello to Vietnam
Shear is a professional and experienced diplomat and also an expert of East Asia and Pacific. His career at the US Department of State has been 30 years.
He was nominated by President Barack Obama as US Ambassador to Vietnam on December 13, 2010. The US Senate approved the recommendation and Shear has become the fifth US Ambassador to Vietnam since the two countries normalized their relations in 1995.
Earlier, Shear was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
He joined the Foreign Service in 1982. He has served in Sapporo, Beijing, Tokyo, and Kuala Lumpur. In Washington, he has served in the Offices of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Affairs and as the Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. He was Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in 2008-2009, and was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary in September of 2009.
Shear was a Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s institute for the Study of Diplomacy 1998-99. He is the recipient of the State Department’s Superior Honor Award, and the Defense Department’s Civilian Meritorious Service Award for his work in U.S. Japan defense relations.
He graduated from Earlham College and has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the John’s Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has attended Waseda University, Taiwan National University, and Nanjing University. Mr. Shear has a first degree rank in the practice of Kendo, or Japanese fencing. He speaks Chinese and Japanese.
The fourth Ambassador, Michael Michalak, finished his 3.5-year term in Vietnam and returned to the US on February 14.
According to the US Department of State, Shear’s priority in Vietnam will be education. The former US Ambassador, Michael Michalak, also said that the new Ambassador would pursue his achievements in promoting US-Vietnam education cooperation over the past 3.5 years.
The bilateral relations between Vietnam and the US have made great progress in the past 16 years. The two sides have created a firm foundation and clear cooperation frameworks in many areas, from politics, security and defense to economics, trade, investment, education, healthcare, science and technology and humane issues like seeking missing in action soldiers (MIA) and solving consequences of Agent Orange/dioxin, cooperation in coping with climate change, combating terrorism and non-proliferation of nuclear weapon.
Vietnam and the US are looking for building a strategic partnership. New Vietnamese Ambassador to the US, Nguyen Quoc Cuong, assumed office in July 2011.
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