‘Silver Fox’ Wang Yi Returns to Lead China’s International Ministry

By Yew Lun Tian and Laurie Chen

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s high diplomat Wang Yi has been given again his outdated job as overseas minister, one he had held for nearly a decade from 2013, after the shock removing of his short-lived successor.

Wang, 69, is a profession diplomat and fluent Japanese speaker who served as China’s ambassador in Tokyo and head of China’s policy-making Taiwan Affairs Workplace.

Likened to a “silver fox” by China’s state media and on-line admirers as a consequence of his greying hair and diplomatic wiles, Wang presently heads the Chinese language Communist Celebration International Affairs Fee, the highest overseas coverage decision-making physique.

Regarded by a few of his overseas counterparts as suave and charming, he has develop into more and more robust lately: a proponent of China’s aggressive and infrequently abrasive “wolf warrior” type of diplomacy.

“Irrespective of how blonde you dye your hair or how sharp you make your nostril, you’ll by no means develop into European, American or Western,” he advised South Korean and Japanese counterparts at a discussion board earlier this month, in a criticism about their pro-western stance.

He advised U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2022 that the U.S. ought to “cease attempting to take care of the Chinese language from a place of energy.”

When he met Blinken in Beijing final month – the primary go to by Washington’s high diplomat in 5 years – he advised him China had “no room for compromise or concessions” on Taiwan, the democratic island China claims as its personal and Washington helps.

Journalists have additionally been on the receiving finish of Wang’s sharp tongue.

After a Canadian reporter requested him about human rights in 2016, he responded by saying the query was “stuffed with prejudice towards China and vanity”. “I don’t know the place that comes from. That is completely unacceptable,” he mentioned by means of an interpreter.

Wang had been saved busy after stepping down as overseas minister in 2022.

He was seen as instrumental in brokering a shock peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March after which stood in for his successor Qin Gang at a number of engagements after he disappeared from public view for a month earlier than his removing.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Modifying by Christina Fincher)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.