Major Changes at China's Foreign Ministry

In the background to recent events, and especially those involving the diplomats, are the changes that have taken place at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the past few years. In 2019, Party Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zhang Yesui was replaced with Qi Yu. The former vice minister of the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party, Qi had no experience with diplomacy. So Qi was appointed "Party Secretary," which is in fact the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an organization that tends to be filled by party members who, like Qi, are graduates of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, have experience living abroad and are skilled in foreign languages. The leader of the Fifth Central Inspection Teams was Yang Zhengchao, and it was Yang's team that issued the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a "Failing grade." The team argued that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had failed to take into account Xi Jinping Thought and key speeches, and had also failed to make policy decisions with due regard for domestic and foreign perspectives. They painted the picture of a new Ministry of Foreign Affairs contributing to the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, which was established in May 2018, and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs serving the people. Any assessment China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes these days has little to do with the circumstances of other countries; instead, anything is positive if it is rooted in Xi Jinping Thought. Foreign policy is decided by politicians, meaning the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, while it is the diplomats' job to carry out that policy and spread the relevant ideas.