China’s Rising Foreign Ministry

Sarwar Minar

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The rise of China as a global superpower is marked by a debate on whether the rise has been peaceful or aggressive. Referred to as “assertiveness”, China’s recent offensive turn has fueled the debate and drawn further attention. While traditional narratives on the rise of China, particularly its assertiveness, focus on its rising military, top political leadership, and nationalism, Dylan Loh’s China’s Rising Foreign Ministry shows how China’s assertiveness can be explained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). The book shows some degree of independent influence of MOFA and considers political leadership as enabler of such role, not independent of the top leadership. The book contributes to a growing body of literature attempting to explain the sources of China’s rise, especially its assertive turn on global stage. Some recent works emphasize the role of diplomats, such as Peter Martin’s (2021) China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy. Others downplay MOFA’s independent role, as in Dai and Liqiu’s (2024) Wolf Warrior Diplomacy and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: From Policy to Podium.

Wolf warrior diplomacy, assertive and often confrontational-style diplomacy adopted by the Chinese diplomats, begins to garner a lot of attention around 2019, though Loh points out that assertive diplomacy has been observable since 2009. The book focuses on the developments from 2009 to 2020, with reflections on the role of MOFA as the central driver and its “representationalrole” of assertive China (p.2). The author uses interviews, participant observation, textual materials, and artifacts analysis to investigate the internal dynamics of the Chinese government. He then applies practice theory, an analytical inquiry focusing on human/institutional “doings and sayings” (p.2) to study China, which adds to the tradition of applying conventional IR theories to study China. The book addresses timely but puzzling questions, including how China’s assertiveness is represented and manifested, how other actors construct and understand China’s behavior, and why its behavior is increasingly being evaluated as assertive by others (p.137).