John Roos

My career was always about working with people, and understanding issues and problems and helping them to solve those issues and problems. How you deal with people - that's what diplomacy is all about. So while I'm not a career diplomat, many of the skills I had seemed to directly translate into the diplomatic arena.

As an American, you appreciate the importance of our security alliance, the importance of the economic ties between our two countries, and while I knew of the two bonds between our two people, until I came here, I didn't really appreciate how deep the people-to-people connections are between the American people and the Japanese people.

Ronald Reagan, when he was campaigning for President, said that he would break relations with Communist China and re-establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But when he got into office, he pursued a very different policy of engagement with China and of increasing trade and business ties with China.