The Senate on Wednesday unanimously confirmed outgoing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the next U.S. ambassador to China, making him the first Chinese-American to assume that post.

Locke replaces Republican Jon Huntsman, who left the China post to enter the 2012 presidential race.

He will arrive in Beijing at a delicate time in U.S.-China relations. The two countries only recently resumed military ties after a period of tension; China cut off most contact with the Pentagon last year after the United States sold arms to Taiwan and President Obama met with the Dalai Lama.

Yet even as they have become more competitive militarily and diplomatically, the United States and China are in some ways more intertwined than ever. China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt — a fact that now has China nervously watching the roiling debt ceiling debate in Washington.

Locke became the first Chinese-American governor during his rise to prominence in Washington state. His visibility and expertise in global trade has helped him nurture ties in the Chinese business world.

During his confirmation hearing in May, Locke received a largely friendly welcome from senators.

At the time, he told the Foreign Relations Committee that he would press the Chinese for market and legal reforms, saying they were in their own best interests. He also expressed concerns about human rights violations, noting China’s recent crackdown on journalists, activists and lawyers.

BEIJING — In one corner of south China, where farmers tend rice paddies and everybody boasts relatives living abroad, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is a local hero.

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

A newspaper vendor in Beijing reads articles Wednesday about the nomination of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as U.S. Ambassador to China.

"All of us here in Taishan are very proud of him, he really loves his hometown," enthuses Li Zhaoming, a teacher at Shuibu primary school in Guangdong province.

Tapped as the next U.S. ambassador to China, and the first of Chinese descent, Locke paid for a new, concrete road through his grandfather's village of Jilong, near Shuibu town, in 2006, says Li, who saw the then-governor of Washington state during Locke's first visit in 1997.

If he achieves Senate confirmation, Locke, 61, a third-generation Chinese American, will swap Washington for Beijing and the often rocky path of U.S.-China relations, among the world's most important — and complicated — bilateral relationships.

As Commerce secretary, Locke fielded many complaints from U.S. businesses frustrated over Chinese trade policies. He's led delegations of U.S. companies on trade missions to China, where U.S. exports were up 34% last year.

"When he's in Beijing, I know that American companies will be able to count on him to represent their interests in front of China's top leaders," President Obama said in announcing Locke's nomination Wednesday.

The welcome should be warm in a nation that takes pride in its overseas diaspora and has come to know Locke, the USA's first ever Chinese-American governor, through his many official visits here. Wednesday, several Chinese newspapers featured news and photos of Locke.

The Beijing Morning Post repeated well-known stories such as his rags-to-riches rise to the Governor's Mansion, 1 mile from where his grandfather worked 100 years earlier as a domestic servant. His use of a helicopter in 1994 to display a banner declaring love for the lady who became his wife drew several admiring posts on the popular Sina micro-blogging site.

Some Chinese expect Locke's ethnic background to influence U.S. policy toward China.

"I think he will be more moderate towards China" than other U.S. officials, says Li Yan, 37, a newspaper vendor.

That's wishful thinking, says Sun Zhe, director of the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Qinghua University in Beijing. Though the man in the street may hope otherwise, China's leaders "know that, No. 1, Locke is an American minister-level official who must follow American policy to protect American interests," Sun says.

In two years as Commerce secretary, Locke has made a strong impression in Beijing and cultivated useful ties, Sun says.

"He talks in a positive way, even when he's talking tough policy, and gives hope that this is a guy you can deal with," he says.

Locke brings ample experience of trade issues, a key area of relations, but will soon face the perennial challenge of explaining Washington's position on issues such as arms sales to Taiwan and human rights concerns.

"I hope he's a quick learner," Sun says.

Back in his grandfather's hometown, Locke serves as an inspiration.

"We teach our pupils to learn English, go overseas and be as successful as Gary Locke," says teacher Li, 58, whose eldest daughter works for a U.S. pharmaceutical firm in New York.

"We teach our pupils to learn English, go overseas and be as successful as Gary Locke," says teacher Li, 58, whose eldest daughter works for a U.S. pharmaceutical firm in New York.

Like I said - Taishanese equate all things White with success. Therefore, becoming "successful" for them is a progressive, multi-generational metamorphosis of "ethnic bleaching":

- Learn English (funny when more Americans are learning Chinese now)
- Emigrate overseas (to a White locale - even if a dirt-broke ghetto like the US)
- Specialize in dirty, but lucrative, professions like lawyering, politics and drug-dealing (pharmaceuticals)
- Anglicize your shameful Chinese last name ("Locke?" LMFAO, WTF is that sh*t???)
- Marry White/Jewish men, or have all your daughters marry them..
- Prove your full American allegiance/opium-induced Stockholm Syndrome by gorging out on In-N-Out burgers, owning a McDonald's franchise and blindly parroting all Jewish jingoism like a smelly sock puppet

i thought he was a white guy hes no different from other us ambassadors.

Who knows how much damage they have done by convincing Chinese people reading this stuff of their lies and Evil bad stuff for so many years since the past.

Perhaps it is even better to learn from them and use them for you even. Maybe sometimes to do the exact opposite of what they say and then you will arrive at the right and smart thing that you should actually do that will end up earning you success in the end; depending on each individual case, of course.

Mrs CB40. Everyone posting in the thread is Asian except you. And I'm pretty sure no one else but you cares whether people posting are Asian or not (except maybe Voyd lol).

And, as I said in some of my last posts on different threads also, I know some of the White "troll" predators who are on this board making their comments. I even accidentally brought them here to this message board, but only accidentally, and opened up Chinese people to be attacked by them in various ways by accidentally talking about YaoMingMania out loud to these people who are my immediate neighbors, who live right next to me.

You see, I know who these people are. They are people who are involved with the families that live on my block, and some of them are my neighbors who live right next to me.

I am sorry for bringing them here on this board to attack and to prey upon Chinese people. I honestly thought they were Good people, they certainly seem like it whe you deal with them personally face-to-face, but they are not. They are a bunch of two-faced wicked people.

I had no idea these families living next to me were so racist amd so like this. And, unfortunately for everyone else as well, they are not only racist against Asians or East Asians--except for Indian people. They are also racist towards other races of people, like Black people, Latin people, Native Americans, and even White people of certain nationalities--like Russians, the British, and some others.

They have also spread what I spoke to them when I dealt with them personally out loud speaking to them on my block all across the Internet and have gone onto other message boards as well, reagrding East Asians. And yes, it is the exact same group of people, twisting what I said and turning it into a weapon to harm East Asians to other Americans, thus teaching people to harm East Asians, using other means in order to spread their aims of what they wanted other people to do to East Asians.