Mr. Biegun, who also was deputy secretary of state for the past two years, left the State Department on Jan. 20. While it remains to be seen who will replace him, the Biden administration has quietly named a handful of key Asia policy officials in recent days.
There was no formal announcement by the administration, but former CIA analyst Jung H. Pak tweeted this week that she has “joined [the State Department] as Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian Pacific Affairs.”
Ms. Pak, most recently a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump’s attempt to redefine U.S. policy toward North Korea through top-down summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.