In this April 22, 2019, file photo, then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel arrives at a news conference outside of the south air traffic control tower at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. (Kiichiro Sato/AP)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will nominate former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve as ambassador to Japan and R. Nicholas Burns to serve as ambassador to China, the White House announced Friday.

Emanuel previously worked as White House chief of staff in the Obama administration and served in the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2009. Biden’s decision to tap Emanuel for one of the top diplomatic posts has been widely reported despite strong pushback from liberal Democrats who criticized his tenure as Chicago mayor, specifically how he handled the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, a Black teenager, by a White police officer

Burns is a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has served as ambassador to NATO and to Greece and worked at the State Department as undersecretary of state for political affairs.