China has transferred a senior diplomat closely associated with the Foreign Ministry’s more confrontational shift in recent years to a new role, in the latest sign that Beijing is rethinking its so-called "wolf warrior" approach.
Zhao Lijian, 50, has been named deputy director of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, the Foreign Ministry disclosed on its website Monday. While technically a lateral move, the new post is far less prominent than the spokesperson’s podium, where Zhao had since February 2020 become one of China’s most prominent public officials, with almost 8 million followers on the Weibo social media platform.
The move comes less than two weeks after China’s former ambassador to the U.S., Qin Gang — a one-time Foreign Ministry spokesman himself — was named foreign minister. Qin, 56, has demonstrated a more traditional, less social-media-driven approach and signaled a desire to mend ties with nations like the U.S. and Australia, some of the most prominent targets of Zhao’s criticism.