Uribe served a tenure as a diplomat between 1967 and 1973, being assigned to United Nations in 1968, and later the Chilean embassy in the United States between 1968 and 1970. In 1971, he became Chile's ambassador to the People's Republic of China under the Salvador Allende government until the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Due to the recognition of the new Augusto Pinochet regime by the Chinese government, Uribe denounced the junta, after which he was dismissed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a result, he went into exile with his family in France, not returning to Chile until 1990.