Former Consuls General

James R. Keith

Former Consul General James R. Keith

James Keith assumed his responsibilities as Consul General of the United States of America in Hong Kong in August 2002. Before coming to Hong Kong, Mr. Keith was the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State in Washington. Mr. Keith is a career Foreign Service Officer. He served numerous tours of duty in Washington working on Asian Affairs and has also served in overseas assignments at the U.S. Embassies in Beijing, Jakarta and Seoul. He studied Mandarin Chinese in Taipei at the American Institute in Taiwan. In addition to his Foreign Service postings, Mr. Keith was a member of the National Security Council under President Bush in the early 1990s and President Clinton in the late 1990s.

Mr. Keith was born in Roanoke, Virginia. He lived as a child in Tokyo, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Taipei. (While in Hong Kong from 1968 to 1971, he attended the Hong Kong International School in Repulse Bay.) He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980 after graduating with a B.A. degree in English from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has studied Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Indonesian.

Mr. Keith is married to the former Jan E. Carter of Deland, Florida. They have six children.