WASHINGTON: James R Lilley, a longtime CIA operative and later the US ambassador to China during the time of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, has died. He was 81. The Washington Post said Lilley, who was born in China to an oil man father and schoolteacher mother, died on Thursday in the US capital from complications related to prostate cancer. Lilley had a close relationship with former President George HW Bush dating to the early 1970s, when Lilley headed the CIA’s operations in Beijing and Bush was the chief of the US mission there. During the 1989 Tiananmen protests, Lilley, a stern critic of the crackdown, often sent his reports about the unfolding events directly to Bush, who was then president. In a statement Friday, Bush called Lilley “a most knowledgeable and effective ambassador who served with great honor and distinction.”