For the first time, NBC News is stationing a full-time correspondent in Beijing, China. The addition of Mark Mullen, most recently a Burbank-based reporter for MSNBC and NBC, is just part of a “major expansion” announced by Steve Capus today.

Fritz Von Klein will serve as the South East Asia Bureau Chief, overseeing “NBC News coverage of the Pacific Rim and South East Asia” from an office in Beijing. (He’ll join Eric Baculinao, the current Beijing Bureau Chief.)

NBC hasn’t had a full-time correspondent in Asia since Ned Colt left the Hong Kong bureau over a year ago. The network says “additional staff announcements in the region will be made shortly.”

“In less than a year, NBC News has opened and significantly expanded three bureaus, including one in the Middle East based in Beirut, Lebanon and another based in New Orleans serving the Gulf Coast region,” the press release notes…