Paulson appointee quits after three weeks
Hank Paulson this week suffered his first setback as US Treasury secretary after it emerged that the person he handpicked to run his new strategic economic dialogue with China would be quitting after less than a month in the job.
Deborah Lehr, a former White House official and trade negotiator who was Mr Paulson's China adviser when he was chairman of Goldman Sachs, is returning to New York to spend more time with her family.
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Her decision to step down - less than three weeks after she was appointed special envoy to the strategic economic dialogue and accompanied Mr Paulson to meetings with China's president and prime minister - astonished China watchers in Washington.
The surprise was heightened by the timing of her resignation letter, apparently just before the three-day holiday weekend, and the absence of a formal announcement by the Treasury.
"I am baffled," said Nick Lardy, a China expert at the Institute for International Economics. "Her two kids did not get acquired in the last month. She knows what it is like to work in the government."
Ms Lehr's sudden appointment last month as overall point person for China is said to have ruffled feathers in some government departments, including Commerce and the office of the US Trade Representative.
However, Mr Lardy said that with Mr Paulson's strong backing, "she would have been able to push ahead".
Lobbyists representing US companies with interests in China were confused by the abrupt resignation, and uncertain as to where this would leave the co-ordination of US China policy. "Given that there seemed to be little interagency co-ordination on the China dialogue, this [resignation] makes it even more confusing," one lobbyist said.
Other experts raised the possibility that conflicts of interest between Ms Lehr's role and her husband John Rogers' position as chief of staff at Goldman Sachs might have played a part in her decision to quit. But again, they said, this should have been vetted before she was appointed.
Some people, therefore, accept that Ms Lehr resigned for personal reasons.
Mr Lardy said Mr Paulson would be hard put to replace Ms Lehr, who he said was "very smart". But he said there was a reservoir of able people involved in the dialogue process.
A Treasury spokesperson insisted that the strategic economic dialogue would not be damaged by Ms Lehr's departure.
上任仅四周 美财长中国特使辞职
美国财长汉克?保尔森(Hank Paulson) 本周，遭遇了上任以来的首次挫折。此前有消息称，他亲自选中、负责新的对华战略对话的波若?莱尔(Deborah Lehr)在任职不满一个月后将辞职。
莱尔是一位前任白宫官员和贸易谈判代表，在保尔森担任高盛(Goldman Sachs)董事长期间，曾是他的中国问题顾问。莱尔将重返约纽，把更多时间留给家人。
莱尔的丈夫约翰?罗伯茨(John Roberts)是高盛办公室主任，被认为是保尔森的密友。
莱尔辞职的决定令华盛顿的中国问题观察人士颇为惊讶。不到三周前，她刚被任命为与中国进行经济战略对话的特使，并陪同保尔森会晤了中国国家主席和总理。
