ISD is grateful to Professor Andrew Scobell and his co-authors for partnering with ISD to publish this report.
Diplomats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have attracted considerable attention and notoriety because of combative rhetoric and aggressive actions. This has led to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) personnel being labeled “wolf warrior diplomats.” How accurate is this term? Who are China’s diplomats? Quantitative studies of contemporary PRC diplomats are surprisingly rare. In this report, Professor Andrew Scobell, Dr. Yi Li, and Allison McFarland identify and describe the key characteristics of two tiers of PRC senior officials with primary responsibility for China’s diplomacy under Xi Jinping.
Click here to read the report.
The first tier of diplomats are top echelon political leaders charged with supervising the work of the MFA and career officials responsible for managing PRC embassies around the world. These are individuals who were actively engaged in the formulation and execution of PRC foreign policy in 2023. We label this group “diplomats-in-chief.” The second tier examined consists of ambassadors operating on the frontlines of PRC diplomacy. While detailed biographical information on MFA personnel is not readily available, Beijing’s ambassadors serving in embassies around the world are the exception. This report taps a unique data set of 169 PRC ambassadors compiled by the authors and draws the following key takeaways:
- China’s MFA is most accurately described as the diplomatic arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rather than constituting the diplomatic corps of the PRC.
- Professionalization is the dominant trend in Chinese diplomacy as successive generations of MFA career diplomats have become better educated and more proficient in foreign languages.
- “Wolf warrior” is best understood as a long-standing CCP diplomatic tactic rather than a descriptor for PRC diplomats or a label for a rising generation of Chinese foreign policy professionals.
China’s diplomats-in-chief are all top tier CCP leaders, some of whom have little if any experience with foreign affairs or diplomacy. Senior PRC diplomats possess an enduring ethos of military-like discipline and ironclad loyalty to the CCP. Diplomats-in-chief Xi Jinping and Wang Yi stress to PRC diplomats that they are a “civilian army,” demonstrate absolute loyalty to the Party and iron discipline, and exhort them to tirelessly struggle to defend and advance Chinese interests.