Later this week, U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is scheduled to meet with leaders at the highest levels of the national government in Burma, including Senior General Than Shwe. If the Shwe meeting takes place it will be the first time that a senior American official has ever met with Burma's top leader.
Senator Webb will be the first United States Member of Congress to visit the nation of Burma in more than ten years. His visit to Burma is one stop on a two-week, five-nation tour of Asia to explore opportunities to advance U.S. interests in the region. Webb serves as chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Webb has enjoyed a continuous personal involvement in Asian and Pacific affairs that long predates his time in the Senate. In addition to his more recent visits as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Webb has worked and traveled throughout this vast region, from Micronesia to Burma, for nearly four decades, as a Marine Corps officer, a defense planner, a journalist, a novelist, a Department of Defense executive, and as a business consultant.
Webb served as an infantry Marine in Vietnam, and later as assistant secretary of defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Pentagon. He also served as an Asia-Pacific regional military planner in Guam, has written extensively on local, national and international issues in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, and in the 1990's worked as a consultant for companies wishing to do business in Vietnam. He has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since joining the U.S. Senate in January 2007.
As chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, Webb oversees U.S. relations with countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Oceana. The subcommittee also oversees regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).