Chinese Experts Challenge Western Generalists in Diplomacy

China’s ambassador to Russia, Li Hui, has spent a decade in his current post. Ambassadors from other countries hardly spend that much time in a single post. In fact, Li has spent his whole career working on Russia and its neighbors. Most importantly, he served as ambassador to Kazakhstan and led the general directorate for Eastern European and Central Affairs in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Li’s considerable regional expertise is hardly unusual in China’s foreign service and may be seen as a strength. However, Li’s example also underscores a persistent problem in China’s diplomacy: a lack of renewal in top posts.

Most Chinese ambassadors spend on average three and a half years on their posts, which is close to the international average. Every year, China exchanges its ambassador in up to a third of its 170 embassies and 10 permanent missions. In the first half of 2018, 27 new ambassadors started their positions. In the past five years, 2014 was the year with the highest turnover when 60 ambassadors were replaced. The lowest turnover was in 2017, when only 35 ambassadors were newly appointed.

In contrast, China’s top ambassadors are far less mobile. The current ambassadors at China’s most prestigious embassies (excluding India) have spent around six years on their posts. In international comparison, this is relatively long. It suggests that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) only trusts a few people to take these top posts. The Chinese government deems its envoys to the United States, Russia, the U.K., France, Japan, Germany, Brazil, India, and North Korea as the most important. With (almost) 10 years, China’s ambassadors to Russia and the U.K. have served the longest. Only China’s ambassador to India has been exchanged more frequently; the current ambassador was appointed two years ago.

Regional Experience Is Key for New Appointments

Knowledge of foreign languages continues to be an important selection criterion for China’s diplomats. Regional expertise, measured in the number of previous postings in or related to the same geographic region, is seen as a plus: The more an ambassador knows about the regional context, the better he/she is able to represent China’s interests on the ground.

The CCP seems to increasingly pick ambassadors with more experience in the respective region than their predecessors. More than half of ambassadors appointed in 2017 have more previous experience in the region than their predecessors. In contrast, only a small minority of 7 percent had less regional experience. For the first half of 2018 a similar trend appears: More than two-thirds of newly appointed ambassadors have at least as much regional experiences as their predecessors, with a third of them having more experience.

China’s current top ambassadors have not only served on their postings for a long time, but two-thirds are close to the official retirement age of 65. Examining their shared career steps provides hints on who could replace them. All top-level ambassadors have at least once served as an ambassador before taking up the top post, indicating that a prior ambassadorial posting is a necessary condition. Five out of the nine current top ambassadors were vice ministers before and/or led a department in the MFA, indicating that having served at a high-level MFA posting counts as a plus.

These demands leave a fairly small pool of diplomats with sufficient international exposure and experiences at the MFA headquarter. Currently, four out of the current six vice ministers and roughly half of the 31 director generals in China’s MFA seem eligible, as they have been posted abroad as ambassadors before.

Three Obstacles to Professionalism in China’s Diplomatic Corps 

The preference for seniority has caused concerns that young diplomats cannot rise through the ranks. While the Chinese government does not publish its promotion criteria, they are the subject of intense debate among Chinese scholars and the foreign policy establishment. (Former) diplomats frequently complain about delays in filling key diplomatic posts. As a consequence, there might be a lack of qualified younger diplomats with sufficient international exposure who could occupy China’s top positions in the future. Whereas complaints about the lack of competence are not unique to China’s foreign policy establishment, the comparatively high dropout rates in China’s foreign service suggest that there might be more fundamental problems.

Centralization of power and the CCP’s more pervasive role could provide the second obstacle to professionalization in China’s diplomatic service. In his speech at the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in June 2018, Xi Jinping reiterated the Party’s tight grip on foreign policy. Most notably, Xi reminded China’s diplomats that they are first and foremost “Party cadres.” For the future, this could signal a big shift in which loyalty to the CCP is valued higher than professional or regional expertise.

The third obstacle relates to the MFA’s weak position within China’s foreign policy apparatus. Chinese embassies not only implement the policies drafted at MFA headquarters in Beijing but they also engage with a variety of actors within China’s bureaucracy. At times, there seem to be no clear lines of command at China’s embassies. Only half the personnel at any given mission are employed through the MFA. At each embassy, there is, for example a Ministry of Commerce representative. While it has been announced that ambassadors should have more say on personnel issues, it remains to be seen if and when this materializes.

Knowing China Is the Best Answer

Despite these potential quality problems, which could weaken the overall effectiveness of China’s diplomatic corps, policymakers in Europe and elsewhere should not underestimate China’s key competitive advantage: the strong focus on regional experience. Extensive previous exposure to the region in which they serve and knowledge of the local language(s) could put Chinese diplomats at an advantage vis-à-vis their counterparts from other countries, which traditionally want their diplomats to be generalists.

It is no coincidence that Western diplomatic services have started discussing opening up regional career paths. If European governments want to meet China’s representatives eye-to-eye, they will have to invest some resources into training diplomats who know China as well as China knows their countries.

This blog post is based on information published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MFA’s and embassies’ websites regularly publish detailed CVs of Chinese ambassadors and the MFA’s leadership. In the news section of the MFA website, ambassadorial appointments are regularly announced. Data was collected on all ambassadorial appointments from January 2012 until June 2018. The CVs of the MFA’s leadership, including vice ministers and assistant ministers, were reviewed separately between April and June 2018.