US-China relations: new foreign minister Qin Gang offers some hope for calmer days ahead

It’s unlikely that China’s policy will change much under Qin as he isn’t in a position to call the shots, but his appointment represents a welcome change of tone and hope of some reversal in an increasingly fraught relationship

Philip J. Cunningham

Published: 8:15am, 7 Jan 2023

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It is too soon to say for sure that Qin Gang’s appointment as China’s new foreign minister will lead to an improvement in US-China relations, but it’s possible it might. It’s not that policy will change – Qin is not in a position to call the shots – but his replacement of the veteran Wang Yi represents a welcome change of tone.

Diplomats are tasked to perform for their countries, and sometimes it is not the hard delivery of policy under the spotlight but the soft public relations efforts on the sidelines that bear the most fruit. This was certainly the case during Qin’s tenure as China’s ambassador to the United States.

He didn’t achieve much in terms of improving bilateral relations as things haven’t been worse in quite some time, though it might be remarked that his affable, unruffled presence helped to slow down the rapidly descending spiral of decoupling and mutual disdain.

Qin did not gain much access or traction in his short time in Washington. He was ambassador for less than two years, in contrast to his predecessor Cui Tiankai, who held the job for eight.

Sometimes being snubbed can lead to years of enmity – one need only recall the refusal of John Foster Dulles to shake Zhou Enlai’s outstretched hand in Geneva in 1954 and consider how that played out.

On the other hand, sometimes being snubbed can lead to looking for other ways in. To the extent that Qin got nowhere inside the Beltway, it was a boon to his subsequent efforts at state PR events and connecting with Americans in far-flung places across the country.

02:20

China’s US envoy Qin Gang strikes conciliatory note on arrival in Washington

Even in Washington, he found outlets that were perhaps deemed below the dignity of his august predecessors, such as shooting a few baskets – and making them – in the company of the Washington Wizards before an NBA game. Further afield, he threw out the first pitch at a St Louis Cardinals baseball game and drove a tractor to harvest corn in Missouri, to much local amusement. He rode in a Tesla with Elon Musk in Fremont, California.

In Provo, Utah, he attended a musical event of Brigham Young University’s Young Ambassadors dedicated to international friendship. This event had a rich resonance because it was attended by the original cohort of the no-longer-young youthful idealists who visited China in 1979 at the dawn of US-China relations. It was a PR stunt, of course, but it was carefully chosen and carried a symbolic meaning greater than the event itself.

Qin is on Twitter. This is not unusual for China’s foreign ministry. Some ambassadors and spokespeople such as Zhang Meifang and Hua Chunying have used the social media platform, which is still banned in China, to slam the US.

Qin Gang’s Twitter feed is kinder and gentler than that. While one can detect no serious deviation from the party line that all Foreign Ministry personnel are expected to follow, there is a hopefulness in tone that is absent in the Twitter missives of his peers.

He likes to pun and is often corny, but corn is better than vitriol: “Pandas are not endangered any more! I hope panda huggers will not, either.”

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Diplomacy by its very nature requires its practitioners to act in ways that non-diplomats might find duplicitous. That being said, some diplomats are better actors than others. Zhou was by all accounts a hardened communist, but his consummate people skills left him with a soft patina and glow that even his rivals came to respect.

By the same token, though he has taken polemical positions worthy of a wolf warrior on numerous occasions, Qin does not come off as threatening as Zhao Lijian or as indifferent and aloof as Wang. Demeanour counts for something in diplomacy, and an upbeat personality can bestow a reputation, even if unearned, for accomplishment.

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When it came time for Qin to sum up his experience in the US, he didn’t dwell on any closed doors and deaf ears. “I have been deeply impressed by so many hard-working, friendly and talented American people that I met,” Qin said, parting on a high note. “What’s past is prologue.”

Now that is a real diplomat talking. His words offer the slender but not inconsequential hope that US-China relations might improve in tone, and perhaps content, when he assumes titular control of China’s foreign ministry.

Philip J. Cunningham has been a regular visitor to China since 1983, working as a tour guide, TV producer, freelance writer, independent scholar and teacher