The Chinese Communist Party has recently made frequent personnel adjustments due to the need to reorganize the leadership teams of central departments and provinces and cities. This personnel adjustment also involves a mysterious department located at No. 4 Fuxing Road in Beijing, China – the Foreign Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee (abbreviated as: the Liaison Department).
Personnel changes at the top of the Liaison Department
The Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is a functional department of the CPC Central Committee in charge of foreign affairs, established in 1951. It works with parties of various ideologies and natures, politicians and their international organizations, including communist parties and other left-wing parties in various countries, national democratic parties in developing countries, and socialist, labor, conservative and people’s parties in developed countries.
According to the establishment of the CPC, the work functions of the Liaison Department include: implementing the CPC Central Committee’s foreign work guidelines and policies; studying the international situation and the development of major global issues and providing relevant countermeasures and suggestions to the CPC Central Committee; handling the CPC’s contacts and liaison with foreign political parties and political institutions; coordinating and managing the foreign relations work of the agencies directly under the Central Committee and the Party committees of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government.
Since January 18, 2021 marks the 70th anniversary of the department’s establishment, one can follow the television footage of an interview with Xinhua, the official media of the CCP, to get a glimpse of the interior of this mysterious department. The facade and interior are very opulent and indeed cost a lot of Chinese taxpayers’ tax money.
Subsequently, official media reports confirmed that Chen Zhou, former head of the disciplinary inspection team of the State Supervision Commission of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in the Central Foreign Affairs Office, had become the vice minister of the Liaison Ministry in January, and that Wang Yajun, former vice minister of the Liaison Ministry, had left the post. Currently, he is ranked last among the deputy ministers of the Liaison Department.
He has served as Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and the Asian Department of the Ministry of Commerce, Minister-Counsellor for Economic and Commercial Affairs at the Embassy of the DPRK, Director General of the Asian Department and Director General of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Commerce, Vice Chairman of the CCPIT, and Head of the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection at the Central Foreign Affairs Office.
Among Chen Zhou’s resume, his experience as vice president of CCPIT from August 2016 to August 2019 is the most peculiar. According to the “China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Functional Configuration, Internal Structure and Staffing Regulations”, CCPIT’s internal structure is at the level of deputy department and bureau, and the provincial local branches are at the level of department. It can be seen that this institution is purely a place to keep idle people, for the Chinese Communist Party officials who aspire to promotion and wealth, is not the ideal transit point, which also shows that Chen Zhou in the officialdom is also an example of a retrograde promotion.
Wang Yajun, who was born in December 1969, has served as First Secretary of the Embassy in Belgium, First Secretary of the Mission to the European Union, Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General in Strasbourg, France, Director of the Economic Diplomacy and Cooperation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Counsellor and Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Policy Research, Minister Counsellor and Minister of the Mission to the European Union, Director of the Policy Research Bureau of the Central Foreign Affairs Office, and Director of the Department of Policy Planning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is the Director of the Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Assistant Minister and Vice Minister of the Liaison Department of the Central People’s Government.
This person has a pretty good diplomatic resume and has been promoted relatively fast, so he should have some political background. As the youngest deputy minister of the Liaison Ministry, Wang Yajun’s job change is likely to be either a promotion or a transfer to a more powerful position, most likely to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In this year and next year, the Minister Song Tao and at least 2 deputy ministers, they either retired to the second line, or transferred.
Foreign Ministry echelon fault
The “Tianjun Political Economy” team speculates that, according to Xi Jinping‘s thinking on hiring, the transfer of Wang Yajun, the former vice minister of the Liaison Department, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a better way to solve the disconnect in the Communist Party’s official hierarchy. Whether as a higher-ranking vice minister or as an ambassador to a foreign country at an important deputy ministerial level, Wang Yajun’s move would ease the pressure on Xi Jinping’s personnel layout in the diplomatic system.
Wang Yi, the current CCP Foreign Minister, is 68 years old and is destined to leave the Foreign Ministry, whether to take over from Yang Jiechi or retire to the second line, depending on Xi Jinping’s face.
Liu Xiaoming, the 65-year-old ambassador to the UK, has returned from his post and is best remembered as one of the leading voices of the Chinese Communist Party’s “war wolves” diplomats who praised pornographic films. His successor is rumored to be current Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang.
The 68-year-old ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, has broken the record for the tenure of any ambassador to the U.S., but is still overage and struggling to maintain U.S.-China relations, and Xi Jinping does not seem to want to move Cui Tiankai at this Time, indicating that U.S.-China relations are the top priority of all diplomatic relations for Beijing, and that there is a serious problem with the echelon of the CCP’s diplomatic system.
According to official information from the CCP’s Foreign Ministry, at least three vice ministers will need to be reshuffled this year and next due to age issues. This is definitely a major headache for the Beijing authorities, whose relations with the US, EU and ASEAN remain tense, in terms of where to go with foreign policy and how to lay out personnel.
Recent Comments