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The ways of Washington

This is a story about how Washington works.

By pulling out of an otherwise innocuous speaking engagement at a seminar reviewing last year's events in Asia, Tom Christensen, a Princeton University professor and leading expert on China, effectively confirmed that he will be the next Deputy Secretary of State for East Asian affairs.

The disclosure was revealed at an unlikely event, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office's Lunar New Year gala, one of the grandest and well-attended affairs of the New Year season among Asiaphiles in Washington, and a place where much information is shared.

There is an unwritten, but unimpeachable, rule in Washington: If you're under consideration for a job in the administration, say absolutely nothing, especially anything that can make its way into the news media.

Christensen was originally to have made a presentation, along with five other experts, mainly from Princeton, at an open seminar on Friday sponsored by the prestigious Asia Society Washington Center and put together by Princeton and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The seminar was an annual overview by a Princeton Asia center dealing with the past year's events in Asia and their implications for the US, with a focus on Taiwan and China, among other issues.

The program was set up months ago, and Christensen's appearance was pushed by Kazuhiko Togo, a Princeton lecturer and former Japanese ambassador to the Netherlands.

Things went well until recent news reports which indicated that Christensen was to be named to the State Department post, according to people involved, who spoke anonymously at the Wednesday evening Hong Kong party over dim sum, Peking Duck and wine.

Then, when the invitations went out late last month, the Asia Society was swamped with responses, especially from the news media. It was not the topic that attracted the respondees: It was Christensen.

On Wednesday morning, people involved in the program say, Christensen suddenly informed the organizers that he could not attend. He did not give a reason, but those involved immediately understood that his impending State Department appointment was the reason.

By noon, the organizers had said that they could put the program "off-the-record," meaning that journalists could not report what he said.

In the afternoon he replied that he could not appear, under any circumstances. The excuse to be given to the public: he had a prior engagement that prevented him from attending two months after the program was first arranged.

In any event, the program on Friday morning at CSIS was scheduled to go on in Christensen's absence.

Ironically, two people involved directly in the Christensen appointment saga attended the Hong Kong party, held in the Historic National Building Museum in downtown Washington: Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Christopher Hill, and his special assistant for East Asian affairs, James Keith.

Nevertheless, at the party both Hill and Keith both said they were having fun.
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