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| Image: Flickr User - Brookings Institution |
By Shannon Tiezzi
Evan Medeiros, Asia chief on the National Security Council, stepped down on June 4.
Once again, the Obama administration is losing a key player from its Asia team. Evan Medeiros, the senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council, stepped down Thursday, to be replaced by Daniel Kritenbrink, currently the deputy chief of mission at the United States’ embassy in China.
Medeiros only took over the top Asia post at NSC in 2013, but had worked on Asian affairs (particularly China issues) in the NSC since Obama took office in 2009. He previously served as the NSC director of China, Taiwan and Mongolia affairs. Alistair Baskey, an NSC spokesperson, called Medeiros a “key architect of the president’s Asia rebalance strategy” in a statement to the Washington Post. Medeiros “helped restructure the content and operation of our China policy in ways that shaped China’s choices as a rising power,” Baskey added. Colleagues of Medeiros said his departure was a personal decision.
For the Obama administration, the change represents another shake-up in an Asia team that has seen its share of turnover. In 2011, the Obama administration lost two of its top Asia advisors – then-NSC Asia director Jeffrey Bader and then-Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg — in quick succession. Kurt Campbell, who became assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs in 2009, left the administration in February 2013, shortly after Hillary Clinton (who is often given much of the credit for jumpstarting the “rebalance to Asia”) stepped down as secretary of state. Daniel Russel, who took over from Bader at the NSC before moving to the State Department to replace Campbell, is one of the few figures providing continuity.
Read the full story at The Diplomat