| Kurt Tong | |||||||||||
| Office: | United States Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau | ||||||||||
| President: | Barack Obama Donald Trump | ||||||||||
| Term Start: | August 27, 2016 | ||||||||||
| Term End: | June 30, 2019 | ||||||||||
| Predecessor: | Clifford Hart | ||||||||||
| Successor: | Hanscom Smith | ||||||||||
| Birthname: | Kurt Walter Tong | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Ohio | ||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | Princeton University (AB) | ||||||||||
| Module: |
| ||||||||||
Kurt Walter Tong[1] (born 1962) is a business consultant and former American diplomat, and the former Consul General of the United States of America to Hong Kong and Macau during the Umbrella Revolution. He joined The Asia Group LLC in July 2019 and is a Managing Partner at the firm. [2]
Tong previously was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of State's Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and replaced Clifford Hart in Hong Kong in August 2016.[3] [4] He arrived in Hong Kong on August 27, 2016, to assume his position as the Consul General.[5]
Tong was the Senate-confirmed U.S. Ambassador for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) when the United States hosted the forum in 2011.[6] He was the Deputy Chief of Mission for the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan from 2011 to 2014.[7] Earlier, he was Director for Korean Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and Director for Asian Economic Affairs at the White House, and participated in the Six Party Talks with North Korea. He also worked at the U.S. embassies in Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo and Manila.[8]
Tong was born in Ohio and raised in Massachusetts. He graduated with an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1987. He has also studied at the Beijing Institute of Education, Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Study in Taipei, Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo, and International Christian University in Tokyo. He is fluent in Mandarin and Japanese.