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Name: Randt, Clark
Current Position: Former Ambassador
Clark T. (Sandy) Randt, Jr. was the longest-serving United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China. He was confirmed by the Senate on July 11, 2001, and arrived in Beijing on July 23, 2001. He left the postition on January 20, 2009, the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated as President.
Randt graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1968. At Yale, he was a friend of George W. Bush and the social chairman of their fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, at the time that Bush was fraternity president.
After graduation, Randt served in the Air Force Security Service, leaving the military in 1972. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan in 1975 and also attended Harvard Law School, where he was awarded the East Asia Legal Studies Traveling Fellowship to China and studied Chinese law at the University of East Asia in Macau.
Fluent in Mandarin, Randt lived in Beijing from 1982 through 1984, serving as First Secretary and Commercial Attaché at the U.S. Embassy. He then lived in Hong Kong for 18 years, where he was a partner in the office of the U.S. legal firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. From 1994 through 2002, Randt was a partner with the law firm of Shearman & Sterling and headed the firm’s considerable China practice. He was also a partner in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance groups. His specialty was advising U.S. companies that wanted to invest in China and helping Chinese firms to list on Wall Street. Randt played a key role in direct investment in China by such U.S. companies as AT&T and Chrysler before its merger with Daimler-Benz.
Randt has been an active supporter of the Republican Party. He contributed to both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns and, in 2008, to the presidential campaign of John McCain.
