| James W. Brown | |
| Office: | Language and Protocol Adviser to the US Ambassador to China |
| Country: | United States |
| Termstart: | 2005 |
| Termend: | 2014 |
| Occupation: | Diplomat, Translator, Interpreter |
| President: | George Bush |
| President2: | Barack Obama |
| Vicepresident: | Dick Cheney |
| Vicepresident2: | Joe Biden |
| Nationality: | American |
| Education: | Fu-Jen University |
| Nickname: | "Jim" |
| Alma Mater: | University of San Diego, (China Center Fellow) |
James W. Brown[1] (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 to more recently Donald Trump’s visit to China in November of 2017[2] 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 in Taiwan before joining Pan-American Airlines in the late 1970s.[3] In 1980, he was hired by the U.S. Department of Defense, and joined the U.S. State Department 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. He retired from the State Department in 2021.[4] In 2021 Jim became a fellow at the University of San Diego’s China Center.
Brown's languages include Cantonese, French, Japanese, and Korean, but is best known for his knowledge of the Mandarin language.[3] 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".[5]