Pretty much, its to make your company or even department seem important becuase you have international connections, as represented by this random white guy. Part of that is also having someone who can speak perfect English, so you just get some loser from the Mid-West whose only skill is having been born speaking English and have him wander around like a mascot.

Also for joint enterprises between Chinese companies and Western companies, Chinese companies liked to have a good fraction of their liason teams be Westerners to help facilitate communication and generally to put the team from the Western company at ease (read to calm down the racist French guy across the table becuase half our team are also French dudes).