Joseph Prueher


Joseph Wilson Prueher is a former United States Navy Admiral who served as United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1999 to 2001. He was succeeded as ambassador by Clark T. Randt, Jr.

Early life

A native of Tennessee where he was born in 1942, Prueher attended Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. He also obtained a master's degree in international affairs from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.

Career

Prueher started his career in the United States Navy as Midshipman as the U.S. Naval Academy in 1960. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War where he flew as an A-6 Intruder pilot. In the later part of his career, he served as the seventy-third Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Prueher attained the rank of admiral as Commander Carrier Group One in 1991. He was Vice Chief of Naval Operations from 1995 to 1996, and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Command from 1996 to 1999.
He was posted as ambassador to China from November 1999 to May 2001. Prueher also negotiated the settlement and delivered the "letter of the two sorries" which defused the Hainan Island incident in 2001.
He then joined Stanford University's Institute of International Studies as Consulting Professor in 2001.
Prueher is currently the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, as well as Senior Advisor to the Stanford-Harvard Preventive Defense Project, working on dialogue for US-China security matters.

Awards and decorations



In December 1998 he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, "for distinguished service in the promotion of Australian and United States of America Defence relations".
In 1997, he was honored with the Naval War College Distinguished Graduate Leadership Award and, in 2001, Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award by George Washington University.

Post-Government Career

Prueher is a director of Fluor Corporation, Irving, Texas; Emerson Electric Co., St. Louis, Missouri; and AMERIGROUP Corporation, Virginia Beach, Virginia.