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China has a new foreign minister in the person of Qin Gang, until now ambassador to the United States. Sign of the importance given by Beijing to the Sino-American relationship.
Polyglot, basketball fan, comfortable with the media and on social networks, Qin Gang embodies open and connected Chinese diplomacy, according to state media. He is also known for his rough, even punchy rhetoric in asserting Beijing’s interests. For the first time, a Chinese foreign minister has a Twitter account. It is also on the American platform that he responded to the congratulations sent from the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in particular.
He is the first Chinese foreign minister that has a Twitter account.
Qin Gang @AmbQinGangcurrently the Chinese ambassador to the US, was appointed as China’s new foreign minister on Friday, replacing Wang Yi. pic.twitter.com/ngC6eKjwWa
— Oliver Liu (@YoloOliver1) December 30, 2022
Proximity to the Head of State
This appointment is not a surprise. Last October, during the XX Congress of the CPC, Qin Gang was elected among the 200 permanent members of the politburo. This is the first time, once more, that an ambassador has had direct access to this level of the state apparatus since the end of the Mao era. Born in Tianjin like former Premier Wen Jiabao, it was under the latter that he first joined the Information Department and spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. After several round trips between the Department of Western European Affairs, then the Department of Information and the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom, he became the youngest Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2018. He will then accompany Xi Jinping in most of his trips abroad, until the start of the Covid.
His rise, he owes in part to the Head of State who will send him to defend the Chinese position asambassador to the United States and appoints him today as head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Traditionally, new leaders wait for the meeting of the Chinese parliament in the spring to take office. This early appointment before the change of year reinforces an already well-filled CV and the thickness of a senior diplomat who, at 56, remains young for the post.
Fox or wolf warrior?
Qin Gang to be the next Chinese foreign minister.
It was he that doled out China’s retaliatory sanctions on EU last year, in language described to me as an “exact replica of Yang Jiechi” in Anchorage 3 days before
— Finbarr Bermingham (@fbermingham) December 30, 2022
It is also probably a sign that Qin Gang is preparing to begin a long term in the tradition of his two predecessors: Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi. Will this stability lead to a softening of the Chinese foreign policy known as wolves warriors » ? Former spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy, Qin Gang said that in 2020 China’s image in the West had deteriorated because Europeans and Americans – especially the media – had never accepted the system politics and the economic rise of China, recalls AFP.
According to some American observers, his visit to the Chinese Embassy in Washington changed his profile of « loup ” to ” renard ». An attachment to the stability of the Sino-American relationship and more generally an appeasement of relations with the West which remain at the heart of his new functions. Even if on the European side, it is complicated. EU diplomats recall being told by Qin Gang, then Deputy Foreign Minister: Now shut up. There’s a new boss in town called China. You will obey and we will tell you what to do ».
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