Ambassador Nicholas Platt

Former President, Asia Society

Ambassador Nicholas Platt served as President of Asia Society. Mr. Platt, the fifth President of the Asia Society, has spent most of his life working on relations between the US and Asia. He assumed his position in 1992 after a thirty four-year career as an American diplomat in Asia. Mr. Platt's involvement with Asia began as a student of the Chinese language in Taiwan in the early sixties, and continued with Foreign Service assignments in Hong Kong (1964-68), Beijing (1973-74) and Tokyo (1974-77). In 1972 he accompanied President Nixon on the historic trip to Beijing that signaled the resumption of relations between the United States and China. He was one of the first members of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing when the United States established a mission there in 1973.

In the course of his government service, Mr. Platt served in several capacities in Washington, including China analyst, Director of Japanese Affairs, National Security Council Staff Member for Asian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for UN Affairs (1981-1982), and Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1985-1987).

He is a Member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and a Member of the International Advisory Board of the Financial Times. Mr. Platt graduated from Harvard College in 1957 and earned an MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1959.