Luncheon Speaker’s Biography February 24, 2020

J. Stapleton Roy

Former Ambassador to China

Ambassador J. Stapleton (Stape) Roy is Founding Director Emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.

He was born in China, where his parents were educational missionaries, spending much of his youth there during the upheavals of World War II and the communist revolution. He joined the US Foreign Service immediately after graduating from Princeton in 1956, retiring 45 years later with the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest in the service. In 1978 he participated in the secret negotiations that led to the establishment of US-People’s Republic of China (PRC) diplomatic relations. During a career focused on East Asia and the Soviet Union, Stape’s ambassadorial assignments included Singapore, the People’s Republic of China, and Indonesia. His final post with the State Department was as Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research.

Following his retirement from the State Department in 2001, Ambassador Roy joined Kissinger Associates, Inc., a strategic consulting firm, becoming Vice-Chairman in 2006. In September 2008, he moved to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to head the newly created Kissinger Institute, while continuing as a Senior Advisor to Kissinger Associates

He is a Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Trustee Emeritus of The Asia Foundation, Chairman of the United States Asia Pacific Council, a Vice Chairman of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and serves on the boards of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy of Georgetown University, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S.-China Policy Foundation. He is a Distinguished Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and a Distinguished Graduate and Member of the Hall of Fame of the National War College. In 2001 he received Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Public Service.