Caroline Kennedy, the last surviving child of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, will be appointed United States Ambassador to Australia, the White House said in a statement Wednesday. This former American ambassador to Japan under the presidency of Barack Obama has yet to see her appointment confirmed by the Senate.
Long anticipated, the announcement comes nearly a year after Joe Biden took office as Republican senators delay most confirmations to key diplomatic posts. In Canberra, her task will be to strengthen the common front between the United States and Australia against a backdrop of tensions with China in the Indo-Pacific.
The announcement in September of Australia’s purchase of nuclear-powered American submarines in particular provoked the ire of Beijing, which saw it as a decision. “Extremely irresponsible”.
Joe Biden’s special envoy for the Indo-Pacific region, Kurt Campbell, accused China in early December of “Bring Australia to its knees” with a barrage of sanctions akin, according to him, to a “Economic war”.
A late entry into politics
Caroline Kennedy, 64, is the only surviving child of JFK and Jackie Kennedy. In 1999, his brother John Kennedy Jr. was killed in the crash at sea of the small plane he was piloting. A tragic death, like so many members of the clan, to the point of speaking of the Kennedy’s curse.
Caroline Kennedy appears in a still famous photo where, as a child, she hid under her father’s desk in the White House. For several decades, she resisted calls within the Democratic Party to see her enter politics, preferring a life focused on writing, especially on civil liberties, and a job at the renowned Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Then Caroline Kennedy returned to the forefront during the 2008 presidential campaign, as fervent support of candidate Barack Obama, describing him as an inspiring person who reminded her of his father.
She had often visited northeastern Japan, devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, before serving there between 2013 and 2017. After her post in Tokyo, Caroline Kennedy joined the council of administration of aeronautics giant Boeing.