In Conversation with Dylan M.H Loh
8 May 2024
9DASHLINE recently had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Dylan M.H Loh about his insightful new book “China’s Rising Foreign Ministry”.
By investigating the dynamics of Chinese diplomacy, Dr Loh shows how China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) gradually became the main interface of Beijing’s foreign policy and the primary vehicle through which the idea of ‘China’ is produced and represented on the world stage.
9DL: In your book, you observe that Xi’s foreign policy has departed significantly from his predecessor Hu Jintao. Could you briefly explain what are the most important points of departure and how diplomacy has evolved under Xi?
DL: I think the most important points of departure include Xi’s increased political trust and increase in material resources for the MOFA. This shows in several different ways. For instance, the leadership small group on foreign affairs was upgraded to the Central Foreign Affairs Commission in 2018. This is a consequential move because it increased the MOFA’s stature and importance, and helped unlock resources much more readily than before. Other changes include increasing the diplomatic budget, resuming the foreign minister’s membership in the Politburo, overtaking the US in the number of overseas missions in 2019, and so forth. These developments underline the MOFA’s importance to Xi’s foreign policy ambitions; from his Belt and Road Initiative to the newer Global Civilisation Initiative, the diplomatic corps are the main implementers and, indeed, chief promoters of these projects. Therefore, in many ways, the changes made to professionalise and strengthen the MOFA have been made with the pursuit of Xi’s very ambitious foreign policy goals in mind. Diplomats are also further incentivised, through performance appraisals and rising nationalism that expects and demands diplomats to ‘do more’, to pursue a more expansive agenda with more visible public displays of strengths — understood somewhat broadly as ‘assertiveness’.
9DL: What roles do international diplomatic traditions and global (shared) practices of diplomacy play in the socialisation of Chinese diplomats?
DL: For sure, international diplomatic traditions and global practices of diplomacy play a significant role in the socialisation of Chinese diplomats. Of course, ‘normal’ standards of diplomatic behaviour and diplomatic decorum influence how Chinese diplomats behave but these are subordinate to the political demands at home. In that sense, the political ecosystem in China has more bearing on how they behave. I say this with a recognition of diversity within the Chinese diplomatic corps; while it is easy to believe that they are one and the same and one diplomat is indistinguishable from another — in the sense that they just follow what top leaders say — that is not entirely true. But what is clear is that domestic factors and the persistence of Party discipline and loyalty is pervasive and trumps shared practices of diplomacy at the global levels. Of course, these practices are not always antagonistic, but they do rub up against what most diplomats and foreign ministries do. For example, all diplomats are obviously expected to be committed to the national cause and be highly disciplined. But it is unusual, say, for diplomats to not be able to meet with visitors individually or to have non-diplomatic officials embedded in the leadership structure of the foreign ministry to monitor and inject Party discipline, as we see in China.
9DL: You argue that there are differences in attitude and perceived functions between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the MOFA. What implications does this have for China’s foreign policy?
DL: I would nuance this and say that they have increasingly different functions. The PLA used to have much greater say on foreign policy, especially in the formative years of the modern People’s Republic of China (PRC) where you had generals and officers making a sudden shift to become ambassadors and diplomats. But with the PRC’s maturation, the division of labour on foreign policy has become clearer and more akin to what you would expect to see from any other country. I would add a clarification on attitude: I would not say the two are very different in their attitude on foreign policy; in fact, they are actually pretty aligned. But there are obviously some differences in their worldviews, styles, and how they believe the world ought to be. These differences, however, do not spill out in any sort of confrontation or contestation. Most importantly, under Xi, the MOFA has initiated strengthened coordination with the PLA on diplomatic and security issues.
9DL: In Chapter 2, you imply that the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s assertive diplomatic practices played a crucial role in shaping ASEAN's response to the South China Sea issue. Could you explain the long-term implications of this influence on ASEAN-China relations? Does it impact the foreign policy strategies of ASEAN countries in their dealing with China?
DL: Indeed, I argue that the MOFA’s assertive diplomacy has affected and shaped ASEAN’s South China Sea responses. In some years, ASEAN leaders omitted statements referring to the non-militarisation and asking for land reclamation to stop allegedly due to Chinese pressure and in recent years the phrase has reappeared. The long-term implication for ASEAN-China relations is quite clear: China can and has exercised considerable influence on ASEAN, sometimes in ways that are mutually beneficial but other times in ways that advance the Chinese interests at the expense of ASEAN. I think big powers, including countries other than China, will continue to test ASEAN’s coherence and centrality. Of course, if ASEAN’s position is to continually accommodate big powers such as China because this serves individual member states’ national interests, then big question marks hang over ASEAN as a group. Thankfully the whole is not merely the sum of its parts. There is some strategic significance in the organisation but this is increasingly put under stress.
9DL: Can the interactions between Chinese diplomats and their counterparts from other nations be seen as significant in shaping China's identity and the broader landscape of international relations?
DL: Absolutely. In fact, this is something that most traditional analyses of China miss completely, and Chapter 4 of the book focuses precisely on this. There are two layers. First, despite the MOFA’s importance in shaping China’s identity on the world stage and how other governments and elites impute this identity, the MOFA’s role in this process is understudied. Second, there is always a risk of over-interpreting China’s behaviour and identity from one particular group of elites (in this case, its officials and diplomats) — when we do this, we slip into deriving complete ideas and identities of China from a narrow (albeit important) slice of China. Assertive diplomatic behaviour, then, quickly becomes synonymous with “assertive country”, aggressive military moves are quickly generalised to an ‘aggressive country’. Regarding the literature on China’s foreign policy, it would be fruitful to look at interactions at the elite or bureaucratic level and investigate what sorts of international effects such elite/bureaucratic processes produce as my book tries to do.
9DL: You write that “Twitter diplomacy…produces new communicative practices that were not previously available to diplomats”. How so?
DL: First, Twitter and indeed all social media tools have changed the general practice of diplomacy — this is not unique to China and it is a general observation of diplomacy itself. The growing and indeed quite vast literature devoted to understanding how social media affects foreign policy and diplomacy is already very well established. Next, for Chinese diplomats, it was not until around 2018/2019 that Twitter accounts started springing up and becoming very active. Bearing in mind that Twitter is banned in China, that diplomats could use Twitter for their work activities is quite remarkable — what they used to do behind closed doors could be performatively and deliberatively aired publicly. This opened up new avenues for diplomatic signalling and communication in instantaneous and a myriad of different ways (videos, memes, charts, photos, etc.) and it is in fact a key dimension of how the overall characterisation of diplomatic assertiveness emerges. This is especially so when you have diplomats engaging in squabbles with other officials and non-officials or when they use very pointed and critical, some would say undiplomatic, language in a public/virtual setting.
9DL: How does the Chinese government judge prominent (Chinese) academics using Twitter?
DL: This is an interesting question, but I can only speculate since my book focuses on Chinese diplomats. It would be difficult to imagine any Chinese academic with a significant online following not being monitored by the state in what they post. This does not mean that alternative views do not emerge; they do, because as powerful as the state machinery is, I do not believe it is omnipotent. However, self-censorship is always more powerful and effective than direct repression, and I think the political atmosphere has tightened so much that most academics probably exercise a large dose of self-restraint online.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Biography
Dr Dylan M.H Loh is assistant professor at the Nanyang Technological University. His research focuses on China's foreign policy, Southeast Asian regionalism and Asian conceptions of the international order. His work has appeared in journals such as International Studies Review, China Quarterly, Cooperation and Conflict, International Affairs, and the Pacific Review, among others. Dylan is also the author of 'China's Rising Foreign Ministry' (Stanford University Press, 2024).