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English: Mark Lambert has extensive experience in East Asia. He recently finished a tour in the International Organizations Bureau where he was nominated for a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award for his efforts in designing a plan to defeat China’s candidate to lead the World Intellectual Property Organization. Previously, he served as the Special Envoy for North Korean Affairs where he participated in negotiations with the DPRK aimed at the denuclearization of that country and devised and implemented a global pressure campaign to cut off hard currency to Pyongyang. Before that, he was Director of the Office of Korean Affairs where he managed a 17-person team addressing U.S. relations with the Republic of Korea and with the DPRK. For over a year, his team shaped the response to a series of ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests conducted by North Korea.

He was Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi where he worked with our Asian allies to devise a South China Sea maritime strategy and led a team that won recognition for dramatically improving U.S. relations with the Vietnamese Communist Party and Government that culminated in the first ever meeting of the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam with the President in the Oval Office.

He served twice in Beijing, most recently as Chief of the Political Unit that managed U.S. political military affairs with China, supported the Six Party Talks aimed at North Korea denuclearization, and monitored China’s relations with Japan, the DPRK, and South Korea. While serving in China he was named the State Department’s human rights officer of the year for devising a strategy to release political prisoners and promote religious freedom.

He has served as Political Military officer in Bangkok where he helped to shape the response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, in Tokyo where he was a political military officer, and on the State Department’s Japan Desk where he worked with Japan on the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty. While attached to the United Nations, he was a weapons inspector in Iraq. His first tour was in Bogota, Colombia during the era of Pablo Escobar.

He has received awards for his work bringing the United States and Vietnam closer together, for his voluntary efforts responding to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, for helping to shape the U.S. response to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and for his work helping to resolve the 2001 EP-3 crisis involving a U.S. naval aircraft forced down on China’s Hainan Island.

He has studied Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Spanish.