Chan Heng Chee

Then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Chan Heng Chee meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen during Lee's visit to the U.S. in 2000.

Professor Chan Heng Chee (traditional Chinese: 陳慶珠; simplified Chinese: 陈庆珠; pinyin: Chén Qìngzhū) is Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United States. She received this appointment in July 1996.

During her tenure as ambassador to the U.S., bilateral relationship improved tremendously. In May 2003, Singapore and U.S. signed the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USSFTA), the first FTA that U.S. entered into with an East Asian country. Both countries also enhanced their ties in areas of defence and security.

Academic career

Chan received her education at the University of Singapore where she graduated with a Master of Arts in Political Science in 1966, and Master of Arts degree in 1967 at Cornell University. In 1974 she received her Ph.D. from the University of Singapore. Her thesis had the title: The Dynamics of One-party Dominance: A Study of Five Singapore Constituencies.^[1]

She was previously the Executive Director of the Singapore International Foundation and served as Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Chan was also the founding Director of the Institute of Policy Studies.

Chan was a member of the International Advisory Board of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations and on the Council at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and the International Council of the Asia Society in New York.

She has received a number of awards, including Honorary Degrees of Doctor of Letters in 1994 from the University of Newcastle, Australia and the University of Buckingham in 1998.

Besides being ambassador to the United States, she is presently professor of political science on secondment at the National University of Singapore.

Diplomatic career

Chan served as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1989 to 1991. During this time, she was concurrently accredited as the High Commissioner to Canada and Ambassador to Mexico.

She became Ambassador to the United States in 1996. At the time, she was the first woman ambassador from an East Asian country to be assigned to the United States. Chan expressed surprise at her appointment, noting "I'm antiestablishment and was a bit of a dissident before I was appointed ambassador. It came as something of a shock to me when I was offered the ambassadorship because I was highly critical of government in a society that is not used to being critiqued." ^[2]

Like Tharman Shanmugaratnam (the current Finance Minister), Ho Kwon Ping , a former journalist dissident and now the chairman of the Banyan Tree leisure group, and other former political critics, she is part of a small group of well-educated dissidents who have subsequently been appointed into high profile positions in the PAP Government, or who have otherwise become part of the establishment.

In 1998, she received the Inaugural International Woman of the Year Award from the Organization of Chinese American Women (OCAW), and Singapore’s first "Woman of the Year" award in 1991. Chan received Singapore's Meritorious Service Medal in 2005 and the Distinguished Service Order, the highest National Day Award conferred in August 2011.

External links

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador CV

References

• The Washington Diplomat Newspaper - Ambassador Profile

1. ^ http://linc.nus.edu.sg/search~S16?/aChan+Heng+Chee/achan+heng+chee/1%2C1%2C34%2CB/frameset&FF=achan+heng+chee&5%2C%2C34
2. ^ Washington Life Magazine: December 2004: verbatim

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Name	Chan, Heng Chee
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Date of birth	1942
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