James W. Brown (born 1953) is a retired American diplomat, mainly specializing in Mandarin Chinese. More commonly known simply as “Jim” he has translated for 6 U.S presidents since

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

to more recently Donald Trump’s visit to China in November of 2017 Brown was born in Washington D.C. as the son of a U.S. diplomat, and studied history and international relations at the

Fu Jen University Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU, FJCU or Fu Jen; or ) is a private Catholic university in Xinzhuang, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1925 in Beijing at the request of Pope Pius XI and re-established in Taiwan in 1961 at ...

in Taiwan before joining

Pan-American Airlines Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

in the late 1970s. In 1980, he was hired by the U.S. Department of Defense, and joined the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

the following year. Although admitting that he wanted to be a "generalist", the U.S. government considered his proficiency in the Chinese language to be an asset as China reopened its once-closed gate to the world at that time, and assigned Brown to multiple tenures at the

U.S. Embassy in Beijing The Embassy of the United States in Beijing is the diplomatic mission of the United States in China. It serves as the administrative office of the United States Ambassador to China. The embassy complex is in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Chaoyang ...

. He retired from the State Department in 2021. In 2021 Jim became a fellow at the University of San Diego’s China Center. Brown's languages include Cantonese,

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, Japanese, and Korean, but is best known for his knowledge of the Mandarin language. Brown remarked that his proficiency in the Chinese language had caught locals off-guard. Brenda Sprague, then the State Department's Director of Language Services, explained that the ability to perform consecutive and simultaneous translation during formal diplomatic and senior-level functions was the highest level of language expertise, but that "At Jim's level, there is only one Jim".

References

1953 births Living people People from Washington, D.C. American diplomats United States Foreign Service personnel Fu Jen Catholic University alumni {{US-gov-bio-stub