US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick announced his resignation yesterday to join investment house Goldman Sachs, after focusing on China and Sudan in the No 2 job at the department.

Zoellick, former US Trade Representative before moving to the State Department in February 2005, had been tipped as a candidate to take over as treasury secretary but he was passed over for the job. He will leave government next month.

With Zoellick at her side, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said her outgoing deputy was a masterful strategist and an intellectual leader who had made America stronger and safer.

She did not announce a replacement for Zoellick.

"Bob has been greater than ever, whenever we have faced challenges," Rice said.

She said Zoellick was willing to "get up his courage and roll up his sleeves and even occasionally hug a panda."

Zoellick, who has a reputation as straight-laced and can appear stiff in public, has been the butt of gentle jokes in the Bush administration for a widely published photograph of him holding a baby panda in China.

For several months, Zoellick has been speaking to Wall Street firms about moving to a more lucrative position there and he said he would join Goldman Sachs.

A spokesman for Goldman Sachs confirmed Zoellick would be joining the firm, but he declined to provide more detail.

Several sources said recently it had been hard for Zoellick to accept his second-term appointment to a No 2 post, even though it was for a State Department job where he had considerable independence.

"I have accomplished what I set out to do and it is time for me to step down," Zoellick said.

Before joining the State Department in February 2005, Zoellick was US Trade Representative from 2001, where he completed negotiations to bring China into the World Trade Organization.

Much of his focus while at the State Department was on China.

"I was pleased, in particular, to assist in reframing the US approach towards China, because that relationship will be vital for America and the world," Zoellick said in his June 15 resignation letter to President George W. Bush.

Another focus has been trying to bring an end to the conflicts in Sudan's western Darfur region, a violent, arid region he has visited several times.

Last month, Zoellick played a pivotal role in getting the main rebel groups in Darfur to sign a peace agreement after talks had dragged on for years in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The deputy was known as a rigorous man of detail who was demanding of his staff. Rice said he usually returned memos she wrote to him with twice as many annotations as the original.

Source: China Daily