A former United States under secretary of state and an ex-Chicago mayor are two leading contenders for the role of top diplomat to China.

The two, respectively Nicholas Burns and Rahm Emanuel, were named by a Bloomberg report, while CNN also suggested U.S. President Joe Biden could appoint Burns. Emanuel was also an early contender for transport secretary.

The role has been left vacant since ambassador Terry Branstad left China last October. Biden and his administration is looking for an envoy with deep political ties or rich diplomatic experience, according to a source cited by Bloomberg.

The major concern was for the person to maintain former U.S. president Donald Trump’s tough stance on China while making it possible to cooperate on issues such as climate change, in order to bridge the gap between the world’s two largest economies, the report said.

Other early choices included David Shambaugh, a George Washington University professor, and several business executives, the report said. Former U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky was also a potential nominee, but she had ruled herself out, Bloomberg sources said.

Burns, 65, became a diplomat in 1981, at the height of the Cold War. He was director for Soviet affairs under American president George H. W. Bush, during which he attended all U.S.-Soviet summits and specialized in economic assistance issues. He was transferred in 1990 to the National Security Council, where he worked as senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia affairs, and was also special assistant to U.S. president Bill Clinton.

At the Department of State, he served as a spokesperson and, much later, as under secretary of state for political affairs. He was an envoy to Mauritania, Egypt, Israel, Greece and NATO. He retired in 2008 and is now a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Earlier this month, Burns told CNN in an interview that the U.S. should not hand over to China the military advantage in the Indo-Pacific region it had secured since World War II. He described China as very aggressive. The U.S. should protect its corporations in terms of subsidies, patents and intellectual properties, and work with the European Union and Japan to force China to follow international rules, he said.

Fellow leading contender Emanuel, 61, was special adviser to Clinton. He became a representative for Illinois in 2000, and chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Democratic Caucus. He was U.S. president Barack Obama’s chief of staff between 2009 and 2010, and was elected Chicago mayor in 2011, a position he held until 2019.

Emanuel’s nomination would likely face opposition within the Democratic Party. When he was Obama’s chief of staff, progressives had raised concerns about his record. His handling of the police’s killing of a 17-year-old black teenager in Chicago should disqualify him from joining the Biden administration, said non-governmental organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

An expert in Chinese affairs said that the most important thing for an ambassador was to have a good relationship with the president. The person should also have some ability to directly communicate with the president and the key people around him, Bonnie Glaser of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told CNN.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki had said that Biden would not nominate diplomats until his list of political appointees had been confirmed. It was uncertain if the administration would name any ambassadors by March, she said.

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