Marcos names ex-CNN Beijing bureau chief as PH envoy to China

Photo from Jaime FlorCruz/Facebook Page

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed CNN’s former Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz as the new Philippine ambassador to China.

FlorCruz was among the list of nominees recently published by the Commission on Appointments as of October 27. According to the document, he was appointed last October 19.

Malacañang has yet to confirm and release his appointment papers to the media as of this writing.

FlorCruz will have concurrent jurisdiction over North Korea and Mongolia.

The post of Philippine ambassador to China has been vacant since Jose Santiago “Chito” Sta. Romana died last April. He was 74.

FlorCruz, 71, previously served as TIME Magazine’s Beijing Bureau chief and correspondent and Newsweek’s correspondent in China.

According to his biography posted on CNN, FlorCruz is considered as the “dean” of the foreign press corps in Beijing, being the longest-serving foreign correspondent in China to date.

He was a two-term president of the 200-member Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China and a member of the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

FlorCruz has studied, worked, and traveled in China for more than 40 years and reported on the country as a journalist since 1980.

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