Is the Replacement of the Chinese Foreign Minister Imminent?... Appointment of Vice Minister-Level Personnel

Appointment of Tian Xiaodong as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Wang Yi Visits Australia After 7 Years... Accelerating Strategic Diplomacy

China has made a new appointment for the position of Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, leading to assessments that the successor to Wang Yi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party Central Political Bureau who concurrently serves as Foreign Minister, is imminent.

On the 14th, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced that, according to the State Council's decision on the appointment of national civil servants, Chen Xiaodong was appointed as the new Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. Born in 1965, the new Vice Minister Chen is a seasoned diplomat who has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for over 30 years, mainly handling West Asia, Middle East, and Africa affairs. After serving as Ambassador to Singapore, he was promoted to Deputy Director-General (Vice Minister-level) in 2017, and from 2020 until his return on the 11th of this month, he served as Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

In 2017, during a period when China-South Korea relations sharply deteriorated due to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, Chen attracted attention by attending the National Day event hosted by the South Korean Embassy in China as the Chinese guest of honor.

This appointment is part of the regular personnel reshuffle filling the Vice Minister position, but it is also viewed as a signal that the replacement of the Chinese Foreign Minister is imminent. Some overseas and Chinese-language media have speculated that, around the time of the Two Sessions (National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), Liu Jianchao, head of the Party's International Liaison Department, would be appointed to the Foreign Minister position currently held concurrently by Wang Yi. However, no official announcement has been made yet.

With the appointment of Vice Minister Chen Xiaodong, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strengthened its leadership from a three-Vice Minister system under Wang Yi to a four-Vice Minister system including Ma Zhaoxu, Sun Weidong, and Deng Li. Below them are three Deputy Director-Generals: Xu Feihong, Hua Chunying, and Miao Dewu.

Among them, Foreign Minister Wang Yi is accelerating strategic diplomacy by visiting Australia for the first time in seven years. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang will officially visit New Zealand and Australia from the 17th to the 21st upon the invitation of Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand, and Penny Wong, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia. Previously, relations between the two countries cooled after Australia joined the United States in 2018 in excluding Chinese telecommunications company Huawei from its 5G network. Last November, Wang visited Busan, South Korea, to attend the first trilateral Foreign Ministers' meeting of South Korea, Japan, and China in four years.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.