The Role of the Foreign Ministry in Shaping Chinese Policy
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I'm Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Welcome to the China Global Podcast. Most observers of China's relations with the world maintain that China's foreign policy started becoming more assertive beginning in the 2010s. The label "Wolf-Orior Diplomacy" was coined by Western media to describe the aggressive language used by Chinese diplomats.

The term wolf warrior comes from the title of the Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 and describes a more combative approach used by many Chinese diplomats, especially in social media and interviews. Explanations for China's increased diplomatic assertiveness vary, ranging from rising military and economic might to the personal leadership style of General Secretary Xi Jinping.

A recently published book titled China's Rising Foreign Ministry investigates the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in shaping and implementing Chinese foreign policy.

In the words of one Southeast Asian diplomat who was interviewed by the book's author, China has a bigger international influence in the last five years, and it is the PRC foreign ministry that is pushing and driving it. So I'm joined today by the book's author, Dylan Lo Ming-Huei, and he is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

His research focuses on Chinese foreign policy, Southeast Asian regionalism, and Asian conceptions of the international order. Thanks so much for joining the China Global Podcast, Dylan.

Thank you. It's my pleasure and a true honor to be here to join you, Bomi. So let's start by just talking about what drove you to write the book. What's the question that the book seeks to address and what was your methodology for addressing that question?

In my book, China's Rising Foreign Ministry, I actually ask a few related questions, but they are grounded by two very big puzzles. The first is, why do traditional assessments of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs typically assess it as a weak or middle power or a non-influential actor?

And oftentimes these claims are mere assertions with very little evidence to point to this so-called weak ranking. And as I dug into the evidence, I saw that this claim needs to be challenged or updated, which I sought to do so. The second big puzzle is together with China's rise and the alleged weakness of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, what does an assertive China really mean? As you already mentioned, in 2010s,

claims that China has become more assertive started to emerge, but there was not a lot of meat in terms of fully fleshing out what this assertiveness entailed. So I sought to add on to the literature on China's rise by flagging and spotlighting a missed story, a deluge of which is China's rise, not only about its economic or military rise, of which it is undoubtedly an important and fundamental part of that, but also a diplomatic rise.

So very quickly, methodologically, my approach was broad, open and qualitatively driven. It rested primarily on oral semi-structured interviews. I conducted 102 interviews with 84 interviewees.

47 were Chinese interlocutors, but it is not only Chinese interviewees I spoke to, but I deliberately sought out non-Chinese diplomats in China and that are familiar with the life worlds of Chinese diplomats to reconstruct their diplomatic practices.

I was careful not to rely simply on expert interviews. So beyond the interviews that I conducted, I used thick case studies, primary documents, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefings. I was there for three live press conferences, diplomatic statements, political leaders' discourses, together with my interviews.

So, Dylan, what do you think that foreigners get wrong about China's foreign ministry? I think most observers today argue that the foreign ministry's role in foreign policy has diminished in recent years, that it hasn't increased. But you disagree with that. So can you explain?

Yes, I disagree vehemently. But first, I wouldn't so readily draw the distinction between foreigners and locals because these sorts of imply local Chinese understand or get everything right about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or outsiders cannot better grasp

China's MFA, which is exactly what I'm trying to do. I was arguing against the conventional view that MFA is diminished and, contrarily, I actually say that its influence has grown. I think

It is somewhat clear today, especially with the term "wolf warrior diplomacy", quite striking that it is used to label diplomats rather than soldiers. In fact, some of my PLA interlocutors joke with me that the diplomats are more "wolf warrior" and assertive than them. There's actually plenty of evidence and I detail that in my book, why I disagree, but let me just give you three examples.

In 2019, for the first time ever, China overtook the US to have the largest diplomatic network, 276 to 273 of the US. This, to me, is quite seismic and what I tried to map out and say as well, but did not and have not got the headline-grabbing effect

of say, if China overtook the US in GDP figures or it has one more aircraft carrier than before. In 2024, the Lowy Institute showed that the edge remained, that in terms of diplomatic presence, missions, embassies, consulates, China still has the edge with 274 to 271. Of course, larger, greater diplomatic presence does not necessarily translate to influence or power, but

In the same way that greater GDP alone does not mean greater global power, it sure is a great proxy and indicator of that. Second, Wang Yi's appointment when he was Foreign Minister to one of only five State Councilor positions in 2018, Yang Jiechi's elevation to the Politburo in 2017, that was hugely consequential because it restored a 10-year gap

of the absence of foreign ministers in the Politburo. Now, this is again quite consequential and I cannot overstate this enough because by virtue of the foreign minister being in the Politburo, it actually gives them the rank of "Fu Guo Ji". There are around 10 administrative levels of hierarchy in the cadre system. "Fu Guo Ji" and "Zheng Guo Ji", these are the top two ranks.

Only these two ranks can be termed as party and state leaders. So essentially, this gives the foreign minister and the director of the Foreign Affairs Commission that level, the extra level of hierarchy, the extra level of influence and sight into the levers of policymaking. The third thing,

Captains of 2018, the leading small group on foreign affairs was upgraded to a commission, a Wei Yuanhui. Again, this is very important because this implies a direct purview under the Politburo Standing Committee, under Xi Jinping himself. It is also a testament to the importance of foreign policy to the Politburo Standing Committee and to Xi himself, but this also endows foreign policy apparatus

with greater material resources, greater visibility, directly aligned to the highest level of party and governmental leaders. The roles that you say that the Foreign Ministry plays are essentially three: implementation, coordination, and consultation. So what's missing from that, in my view, is formulation.

If we look at our State Department in the United States, certainly the Department of State plays a role in the formulation of policy. So would you then agree that to some extent the foreign ministry, of course, it has leeway to exert some influence, but it doesn't formulate policy properly?

Therefore, it's still limited as to how influential it can be. Certainly, the foreign ministry can interpret what the instructions are that come down in very general forms from Xi Jinping. But there are others that are doing that as well.

So how do you evaluate that when the foreign ministry really doesn't play a role in actually setting the objectives? It's only implementing and coordinating.

Right. Thank you, Moni. That's a completely, in my view, correct assessment as well, which I share. Of those capacities that I highlighted, formulation is not part of its main roles. And historically, that is ebbed and flowed, but there's a deliberate reason why formulation, the making of policy is centralised in the Politburo Standing Committee within this apex of political power.

And I'm not saying as well in my book that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is this powerhouse where they have so much influence that they can set agendas, they can both formulate and implement

But simply to point out that a more modest argument really, that through its implementation, through its coordination and through its consulting, advising capacities, they actually wield some influence. So again, my argument was quite modest. It's running counter to the argument that said they have very little influence. I'm saying that through these capacities, they actually can affect policy.

Quick example, and I'll go through this. It's quite well acknowledged in the literature and political science that implementation is not simply a neutral or apolitical technical practice. It is political, and through implementation there, it can be an exercise of power. The so-called street-level bureaucrat that political scientist Michael Lipsky talks about, I see that very clearly in Chinese diplomats.

in which through the process of implementation, they are able to influence the process and influence outcomes. A quick empirical example. In 2016-2017, when Singapore-China did not have the best of relations because China essentially detained some armored vehicles of Singapore,

and Singapore sent dignitaries over to China for visit. As far as I know, the decision to downgrade the level of leaders that met with the visiting dignitary from Singapore was downgraded. And this decision implementation, essentially part of the bread and butter of the Chinese diplomats was made on the spot. It wasn't a general direction given down from the center and say that you must downgrade the equivalent of leaders meeting your foreign dignitaries.

In terms of coordination, they are able to corral and coordinate domestic actors. And this includes, in the case of BRI, South China Sea, quite clearly. They are able to advise, although I would be careful not to say direct because they cannot direct, but they are well suited to advise certain companies in terms of their mining activities, in terms of what they can, cannot do, in how they evaluate certain projects or not.

that role has, that coordination role has gotten more prominent. I think they can through this drive certain agendas, set the scope of debates and delimit what is possible or not. And finally, consultation. This is most noticeable in the embassies abroad because they, much like any other foreign embassies, they send reports back to the capitals.

But even as something as banal as advising provincial leaders whom to meet, what time, how long the meeting should cut off, whether you should call this meeting, culture this meeting as a hui jian or hui tan, all of these matter, symbolic, but it matters. And it is the diplomats that is deciding and fine-tuning these sorts of practices, essentially to get a shape, massage, and guide what top leaders read as well. When think tank reports go in, for example, recommendations and so forth,

MFA is the filter. So these sets of practice exist. They surely exist in some shape, way or form in foreign ministry as well. But what is different for China's MFA is that these capacities have been considerably strengthened and become much more visible. Since you sit in Singapore and your research focus is Southeast Asia,

Let me ask whether you think that there are aspects of China's diplomacy in Southeast Asia that are unique to that region, or do you see them as sort of consistent with Chinese diplomacy in other parts of the world, including towards great powers like the United States? Thank you. That's a fantastic question.

And it's something that I deal with it in the book as well. And I wish I had more time to deal with it. On the similarities, there are many. The quality that sticks, regardless of whether you're a small power, middle power or major power, is quite clearly the increased level of perceived assertiveness. Be it in Washington or Canberra or Kuala Lumpur, it is quite clear from the data in the field interview that non-Chinese diplomats

across geographical regions that are stationed in Beijing, and when they talk about what their capitals feel and what they feel on the ground, is that there is a perceptible increase in Chinese diplomatic assertiveness. I think this phenomenon, or at least the general perception of this increased Chinese diplomatic assertiveness is globally felt. There are differences as well. I would say that there is a lot more

innovation and experimentation in Southeast Asia. In Southeast Asia, due to the instances of elite capture or political elites closeness with Beijing, Chinese diplomats have really been somewhat visible at the forefront of influence.

Whereas in Western societies, I think these countries are typically very sensitive to influence of the nefarious kind. It would be, for example, unthinkable for a Chinese diplomat to campaign on the streets and support, say, presidential candidate Trump or presidential candidate Harris. It's unthinkable in the presidential elections. But it is part of the world. As I've mentioned, some sort of experimentation, innovation taking place. Quick example.

2018 Malaysia General Election, which I also detail in the book, campaign posters featuring Xi Jinping featured prominently for the Malaysian Chinese Association in their election bid, the Malaysian Chinese Association's component party of the Barisan National Coalition.

The then Chinese ambassador was also literally on the campaign trail with some of these MCA candidates. So there are also reports of greater roles that diplomats play in terms of cultivating the clan associations, Chinese clan associations, of which there are plenty in Southeast Asia because of the significant ethnic Chinese populations, business communities and significantly media organizations.

to pump out pro-China content or to set limits on discussions of so-called "sensitive" topics. Now this happens in liberal Western democracies too, but it is far easier to spot in a much heavier contested media ecosystem like the US, far easier to spot, get called out for. In Southeast Asia, diplomats are at the forefront of some of these efforts.

One of the things you referred to earlier and you write about in the book is the relationship between the foreign ministry and the PLA. I recall early years when I was doing work on nonproliferation and arms control, that there was a task force in China that included members both of the military and the foreign ministry. And yet on other issues, there would be virtually no coordination.

What does this look like today? What are the issues in which you see that there's close coordination and how does that work? Thank you for another great question. Indeed, one of the empirical findings that struck me as well was that there's far greater coordination between the PLA and the MFA today, especially on foreign policy issues.

it is difficult to find any issue of significance that doesn't have a foreign policy element in some ways, which also explains why there's a greater reliance and dependence on MFA. I think there was a realization that China's foreign policy activity or behavior

because there were so many actors, there was a greater need to coordinate, to inject greater coherence, greater discipline amongst all these actors. And that is where and why the MFA has got an opportunity and opening to play that coordinating role for everyone. In my interviews, PLA interlocutors somewhat begrudgingly accept that MFA will play a greater role, somewhat greater role in foreign policy.

This is historically a role that PLA enjoyed. Sorry, yes, the PLA enjoyed quite a fair bit and they have had to see some of that slip away. So there's a bit of tension between the two, but I wouldn't overplay. I would characterize it more as an adjustment. Both actors have to deal with the shift

with MFA taking on a much more prominent role in foreign policy and far greater strengthened coordination role as well. Now, I need to be clear that I'm by no means suggesting that the PLA as an institutional actor is somewhat weaker. No, it's not. It's still very strong. It's one of the, if not the most consequential institutional political actors and Xi's persistent efforts to rein in the PLA to date shows both the challenge but also the significance and importance of the PLA.

I'm also not saying that PLA listens to MFA. They would not acknowledge that they do not listen, that they listen to the MFA. But as with any rising power, in this case MFA, will naturally cause the status quo power, PLA in this case, some sort of friction. So quick example, territorial disputes. This is PLA territory as it gets

But even on territorial dispute, there has been evidence show that there's been far greater coordination with MFA playing a far greater role than ever before. Doklam crisis in 2017 in India and China was one instance of this. You see Ministry of Foreign Affairs pumping out publications, running these press conferences, leading the charge in painting how they were the victim and justifying some of their actions.

What about the International Liaison Department, the party's role? How does that connect with the MFA? And have you seen the International Department become more important than the Foreign Ministry at times? To very quickly answer that question, no, I don't see the Liaison Department being more important than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I do see a trend that the two departments are blending.

they are not the same, they are still distinct and separate, and there are still some clear lines of divisions, and also somewhat clear division of labour as well. But there has been a process of blurring, and this blurring has gotten even more intense, I would say. 2019, Qi Yu was inserted into the party sec-gen for Michelle von der Fest. Now, this was hugely important because he was the first member

party leader in MFA that did not have any diplomatic background whatsoever. Previous party sec gens were diplomats, they came from diplomatic background, so they understood foreign policy. He came in purely from a party background and there is in effect trying to turn MFA into more of a party-like institution. There's been an effort to make the liaison department and the MFA a bit more aligned.

In terms of personnel movement, I think it's also quite clear where it's going. Former Singapore, Chinese ambassador to Singapore, Sun Haiyan, for instance, was promoted, essentially, after the last short stay in Singapore to become Deputy Minister in Liaison Department. Lu Kang, who was spokesperson, ambassador to Indonesia, likewise Deputy Minister back in the International Liaison Department.

Liu Jianchao, he had experience in Mission of Foreign Affairs. So I see a lot more of these sort of secondment and movements between ILD and Mission of Foreign Affairs. And it is done, in my mind, to strengthen the coherence and to

institute greater mutual institutional learning between the two organizations. You conducted many interviews for your research in the book with both Chinese and non-Chinese diplomats. So give us an example of an interview that left you with a deep impression and tell us what you learned from it.

I've had many interesting conversations, a good majority of which did not make it to the book simply because it would have been overwhelming. I do have already anecdotes of many that left me with a very deep impression. This was with a Chinese interviewee. It left me a little bit shook. This took place in 2017. The end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017 was a period where

Singapore-China ties were not great, as I've mentioned, armored vehicles were detained and so forth. Now in my interview with him, essentially he started very harshly criticizing me, criticizing Singapore's political leaders. He started directly reprimanding me, scolding me, castigating me, and I had to

I had to adjust and think what is happening because upon reflection, I found out that he probably saw me as a representative of Singapore, representing some part of the government, which I do not. The Chinese have a habit of doing that. They do the same to me.

Right. So that was my first in being inducted in that way. And that's when I saw upfront, albeit in a very small way, the different facets of assertiveness bundled in that one encounter. And indeed, if you look at the Chinese playbook, if you look at influence campaigns, diplomatic practices, foreign policy, it is comprehensive, almost all encompassing.

especially when there is an easy target to rally or coalesce around, such is the case with the US now. I think sometimes it gives off the idea that they are strategically coordinating everything at the behest of some sort of grand strategy. But I think this gives too much credit to the effectiveness of let's just throw everything at it. Let's just throw the whole kitchen sink at it and we'll see what sticks.

But beyond that episode that I have, honestly, I have only been genuinely touched by the kindness and warmth of people that I've met. I have so many stories of

people that I've met for the first time that saved my skin, that literally was with me throughout very hairy encounters and made sure that I was okay. So many stories to share, but I will not belabor the point because I think I will digress too much. Great. Well, of course, we want our listeners to read the book, so we have to leave some things for them to not hear on our podcast.

Well, obviously, I work at a think tank, so I have to ask you about the policy implications of your research and what lessons can be drawn from this research for how other countries should interact with China, what we should expect from Chinese foreign policy going forward, or how we should deal specifically, of course, with the foreign ministry.

Right. I do have to start off my comments on my response with a caveat that I did not write the book with any sort of policy payoff in mind. And my current views really represent my current reflections post-talk, post-publication. I do see sort of three policy implications that come up to me quite apparently.

The first of which is, I think countries, broadly speaking, need to manage, adapt and push back against Chinese diplomatic assertiveness. I think the diplomatic space is where China has a large significant room to maneuver, generally unmolested in large parts of the world, except from a few Western countries.

And even then, the response is often modest or calibrated. Now, you contrast that to how countries' major powers are responding to economic or military challenges, where any sort of assertive action do very quickly get challenged or responded. Whereas diplomatic assertiveness in many ways is sometimes brushed off as unimportant, within the scale of escalation is not significant.

My research shows that this is not true. It is hugely consequential. There are effects and if you leave it unattended, it will snowball and result or manifest in some ways. The second and related to the first is that while defence spending globally is going up, countries must not neglect to invest substantially in their diplomatic corps. This means investing

developing specific China knowledge and expertise, stuff that your think tank, good work your think tank is doing to expand their own diplomatic capabilities. Now, lest I misunderstood, I think more countries having more in-depth understanding, not with the purpose of competing or containing or constraining can only be a good thing. Because looking out, I think while there is a lot of demand for China-specific knowledge, I don't think the supply of that

quite keeps up with the demand. China is and China will continue to invest in its diplomacy and diplomats. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but their presence is going to be much more visible internationally as well, and the rest of the world needs to accommodate and manage that. Finally, a third but perhaps a very simple point is that

Countries need to pay more, policymakers need to pay more attention and develop relationships with Chinese diplomatic actors, diplomatic actors broadly conceived, scholars, party members, diplomats themselves. Keep lines of communication open with public and private channels.

It might run counter to the current zeitgeist in the US, but I don't believe that there's any other option. And as much as it may seem that presidency is omnipresent, omnipotent, truly the CCP and China is much more than that. If I remember correctly, you finished your interviews for the book in 2020, so about four years ago. And we've seen some...

fairly significant developments since then. Of course, notably the removal of Qin Gang as foreign minister.

and Wang Yi taking on the role of foreign minister again, even though he is head of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the same time. And I think many of us had expected that there would be a foreign minister appointed, but, you know, here we are still in the middle of 2024 and no new foreign minister.

What are the sort of conclusions you might draw looking at what has transpired since you finished the book? And do you think that there's been any changes, any new trajectories or indicators about the role of the foreign ministry?

Right, thank you. Another great question because it gives me an opportunity to reflect. First, I've got to admit that I was lucky on two fronts. The first of which I conducted the majority of my field interviews and field research before pandemic hit.

And secondly, before the screws on political discourse really tightened, and I'll be really honest, a lot of the people that I spoke to, especially the Chinese interviewees, basically wouldn't speak to me today. They wouldn't speak to me today and I would not be able to do the research or have the access to people or conversations that I had.

This is, in my view, not a great situation because at a time when more China knowledge information is needed, it is harder and harder to do so and to get insights from an anti-view. I think what has happened since then, there has been some changes, but it's reconfirmed what I found in the broad brushstrokes. I think it's quite telling on several levels when China is actually upping the salary. It was reported a couple of months ago that it's upping the salary of its

all its overseas diplomats by a thousand US dollars per month, regardless of ranks. Now, this is truly remarkable when you are considering that at home economically, they are not doing so well.

Well, because we see all of the ambitious foreign policy goals and its implementation centered on its foreign policy actors. So the push to professionalize diplomatic corps, the push to invest more into its diplomatic corps continues.

The other change that I did not have opportunity to deal with in the book, and which I touched on earlier when you asked about the liaison department is why the greater blending of the liaison department with the foreign ministry? What are its effects?

The other change that I see, I think more recently, I would say this year as well, is the scaling down, quite discernible scaling down of wolf warrior diplomacy at the tactical level. Strategically, I think there has been no change, but I think tactically, wolf warriorism does not have the same cachet that it had before. Yes, I would definitely agree with that. So maybe for the final question,

If you look into your crystal ball and try to predict the role of the MFA going forward, do you think that we will see the foreign ministry exert more influence? Do you think that there will be any changes in the future that we should look for? What are the indicators we should look for? Do you expect greater assertiveness or do you think that this...

as you say, wolf-warriorism that has receded to some extent, do you think that will disappear or will it come back? Right. The good thing of doing research that is geographically scoped and temporally bound is that I can get away mainly with explaining and not get into the tricky business of predicting.

But I do get asked this question quite a fair bit, so I'll give it an educated guess. I think we will see, as we are seeing consolidation shift at the tactical level I mentioned earlier, that we are seeing a de-emphasis of the wolf warrior aspects on China's diplomacy. But at a strategic level, because they have found quite good traction in the global south,

unless there is some sort of coordinated pushback, particularly from the global south, which is unlikely to happen, China will not change tack.

If you are able to push, to coerce, to cajole, to incentivize the other's behavior to your liking, compel others to say and act things in a way that you want them to say with some success, you are going to keep doing this. And this is linked to my earlier point on policy implementation, policy recommendations on implications as well, because they are having quite a bit of success here in some of its diplomatic maneuvers and actions. They are going uncontested.

They are continuing then to coerce, to influence, but with more finesse and sophistication because they are learning as well. They see the limits of wolf warrior diplomacy. They see the effects of reputational costs. So they're not abandoning it. They are simply or merely finessing it. I do see, continue to see a growing role for its diplomat and a mission of foreign affairs.

Wang Yi's position, not by design, current position as both the director of the commission and foreign ministry is unprecedented. But I think that they're learning a lot. I think that they are seeing that there's a lot of benefit to be had in having both roles centralized into one person. And this will continue in my view. I think it will continue at least until the end of the year.

I do also see finally a greater shift towards acquiring and exercising discourse power. President Xi himself has said quite strikingly that the West is strong in the international court of opinion, China is not, and they need to increase their discourse power, hua yu quan. So I see that featuring much more heavily, and I think that

China's diplomats will be at the trenches and the front lines of pushing for greater discourse power and exercising that discourse power as well. We've been talking with Dylan Lo Minghui. The name of the book is China's Rising Foreign Ministry. And Dylan is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Thanks so much for joining us, Dylan.

Thank you. Thank you. Truly an honor. Thank you.