China Seminar | 20 April 2000

Beyond Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Chinese in Indonesia

Lili Ming has served in the U.S. Foreign Service for twenty years and is currently Diplomat-in-Residence at the East-West Center for the 1999-2000 academic year, where her research has focussed on the successes and failures in assimilation of Chinese minorities in Southeast Asian countries. Ming’s Asia-Pacific experience includes service as political/economic officer in Majuro, consular officer in Beijing, and consular officer in Singapore. Her most recent assignment was as chief of the Consular Section in Dakar, Senegal, beginning in 1996. While in Dakar, she also served as regional consular officer, covering six other countries, including Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, where she organized the evacuation of American citizens following coups in those countries. Last February, she was an observer with the U.S. Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission. Ming is currently studying Bahasa for her next posting, which will be as Deputy Political Officer at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta.