Opinion | 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

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Qin Gang (right), China’s ambassador to the United States, speaks during a fireside chat in Washington on December 12, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 8:15am, 7 Jan 2023

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.