Who is Xie Feng? China’s Next Ambassador to the U.S.

The following profile is by Emerson Tsui, an intern with the Carter Center’s China Focus. Tsui holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. 

Qin Gang was China’s shortest-serving ambassador to the U.S. He was appointed to the post in July 2021 and left Washington D.C. in late 2022 to become China’s foreign minister following the 20^th Party Congress in October. Qin’s predecessor, Cui Tiankai, left in March 2021 after serving more than eight years as China’s ambassador in Washington. Qin was appointed within four months of Cui’s retirement. Today, it appears China does not want to leave the post vacated by Qin Gang empty for even that long. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 12 that its sources in China indicated that Qin’s most likely successor is Xie Feng, who currently serves as China’s vice minister of foreign affairs. There are rumors that Xie’s name has already been submitted to the U.S. State Department.

Who is Xie Feng? What is his diplomatic style? Will he be able to serve as effectively as his predecessors, Qin Gang and Cui Tiankai?

Xie’s Career in Foreign Service

Xie Feng was born in Jiangsu Province in April 1964. After graduating from China Foreign Affairs University in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in law, he began to serve in China’s Foreign Ministry. Serving in multiple departments including the Department of Western European Affairs, Personnel Department, and Information Department for the first few years of his career, Xie was later posted to the Chinese embassy in Malta in 1989 (a crucial year in Chinese foreign affairs because of the Tiananmen crisis). He was soon promoted to the third secretary between 1990 and 1993.

Xie Feng’s early experience with U.S.-China relations began when he was assigned to work in the Foreign Ministry’s Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs in 1993. He worked in this division for seven years, during which his career took off. By the time he was posted to the Chinese Embassy in Washington in 2000, he was division chief. During this period, he was also an Eisenhower Exchange Fellow at Duke University in 1999.

This first posting to the Chinese Embassy to the U.S. was for a period of approximately three years and primarily focused on U.S. Congressional affairs. Later, Xie moved to manage the Embassy’s press needs, eventually becoming its spokesperson in 2003.

Xie returned to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing in 2003, where he continued to work in the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs. By the time he was appointed ministry counselor to the China Embassy in the U.S. in January 2008, he was its deputy director general. In the same year, China hosted the Beijing Olympics which sought to bring an image of Chinese confidence and openness to the world. During this time, Xie also obtained a master’s degree in public administration from Renmin University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. In October 2010, Xie returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to become the Director-General at the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs.   

Scaling the Bureaucratic Ladder

Having worked for almost four years as the top diplomat responsible for North American and Oceanic Affairs, Xie Feng was appointed China’s ambassador to Indonesia in 2014. In the following three years in Jakarta, Xie Feng became immersed in managing Beijing’s relationship with Southeast Asia. His term witnessed a reversal of increasingly negative views of Beijing in Indonesia. Since 2014, Indonesia’s approach to China has shifted from distant associates to close partners. The same year, Indonesian President Joko Widodo paid the first visit to Beijing to attend the APEC summit. That same year, an act assigning traditional dictation in reference to China (‘Tiong Kok’) was passed as a display of respect. In April 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping also visited Bandung to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo visited Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum on May 14–15, 2017.

Three years after he started his post in Indonesia, Xie Feng was assigned to be the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s top person in Hong Kong, elevating himself to the vice-ministerial level. His subsequent stint in Hong Kong, from June 2017 to January 2021, witnessed the city’s most turbulent upheaval since its return to China in 1997. Although the Foreign Ministry’s office is not involved in maintaining social and political stability in SAR, Xie certainly addressed the diplomatic consequences of the Hong Kong National Security Law. For example, shortly after the U.S. Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, Xie summoned Hanscom Smith, then Consul General in Hong Kong and Macau, and expressed stringent dissatisfaction with the U.S. decision and expressed China’s rejection of interference by “external forces(外部势力)”.

Additionally, like most officials in Hong Kong, Xie was adamantly supportive of national security legislation for Hong Kong, which he argued ‘is of greatest urgency, the Central Government has both power and obligation to safeguard national security, and the international community can rest assured.’ Not long after, Xie Feng took over the responsibilities of Zheng Zeguang, the vice foreign minister, who was appointed as China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. His portfolio includes policy planning, North America and Oceanic Affairs, and Latin American issues.

Experience in the Americas

Since his return from Hong Kong, Xie Feng has been involved in mediating frictions between the Americas and China. In May 2021, he escorted a large delegation of Latin American diplomats to Xinjiang to resist Western globally reported allegations of a state-led genocide in China’s Xinjiang region.

Two months later, Xie Feng met with Wendy Sherman, the Deputy Secretary of State, during her visit to China. He presented to Sherman two lists of issues that China wanted Washington to address before tensions could ease. The list featured requests for the U.S. to renounce its defaming rhetoric, sanctions, and the dismissal of charges against Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, who was under house arrest in Canada pending her extradition to the U.S.

In August 2022, in the wake of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Xie Feng summoned Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Ambassador to China, twice to the Foreign Ministry to lodge protest.

Furthermore, Xie Feng was with the Chinese delegation when President Biden and President Xi Jinping met in Bali on November 14, 2022. Later, he hosted Daniel Kritenbrink and Laura Rosenberger in Langfang, China, where they discussed an upcoming visit by Antony Blinken.

Coming to the United States?

At the 20^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Qin Gang was elected to the Central Committee. China watchers quickly realized he would replace Wang Yi as China’s next foreign minister and began to speculate about who would succeed Qin Gang.

The top two candidates for this position were Zheng Zeguang, China’s ambassador to the U.K. and Xie Feng. Notably, Zheng Zeguang was also a strong contender for the position of China’s ambassador to the U.S. after Cui Tiankai retired in March 2021. In June 2021, Zheng was appointed as ambassador to U.K. and Qin Gang came to the U.S. as China’s ambassador in July.

The deciding factor was likely diplomatic experience and their loyalty to Xi Jinping and Wang Yi. Outsiders have no way of knowing these intricacies. It was not clear who is likely to be appointed as Qin Gang’s successor until the Wall Street Journal’s reporting last week. Notably, Xie Feng is a year younger than Zheng Zeguang, but age is no longer a key factor in promotion within CCP ranks (something we can infer from the 20^th Party Congress). If age was still a determining factor, Wang Yi, at the age of 69, could never have been promoted to the Politburo.

If appointed, Xie Feng will be a rarely-seen ambassador according to his portfolio combination. In terms of experience, Xie Feng has more exposure to the United States. Before serving as China’s ambassador to UK, Zheng was posted to Trinidad and Tobago and the United States Xie Feng, on the other hand, served in Malta, the United States, Indonesia (as ambassador) and Hong Kong (as commissioner).

Indeed, Xie Feng owns a diverse foreign service history. He has experience working with high-profile U.S. foreign service officers, having been stationed in Washington twice. He also supervised the Chinese Embassy to the U.S., crucial career experience as an incoming ambassador. Perhaps most importantly, a diverse foreign service career highlighted by decades of overseas experience distinguishes Xie Feng from his Chinese counterparts (his experience covers Europe, Southeast Asia, North America, and Latin America, along with maritime and Hong Kong affairs—all crucial to Chinese national interests today). His service history differentiates Xie from his predecessors Li Zhaoxing and Qin Gang, whose diversity in overseas experience pales in comparison. Last but not least, experience in the Information Department will have equipped him with dexterity in selecting narrative and tone.

William ‘Bill’ Klein, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing since 2020, claimed Xie Feng to be cautious and flexible depending on priority, context and audience. At the same time, however, Xie Feng is also fully capable of the ‘wolf warrior’ style. Quotes reflecting his diplomatic style include: ‘The relevant American politicians have openly colluded with the opposition and violent radicals in Hong Kong, and attempted to play Hong Kong as a card to blackmail the Chinese government and people and to contain China’s development. Such plots will remain a pipe dream and only backfire.’

Xie Feng also criticized the U.S. approach to the Hong Kong issue in 2019. When meeting with Wendy Sherman, Xie’s quotes targeted U.S. foreign policy with radical criticism that went viral among domestic audiences in China: ‘[The U.S.] benefits itself unilaterally, utilizing all dishonorable means while scrambling on the profits available: How on earth this principle remains capable of standing with its ground?’ Xie Feng associated the “stalemate” in bilateral relations with U.S. irresponsibility and its demonization of China. He also called for a change in ‘its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy.’ Drawing from some of his other statements, Xie Feng is nonetheless capable of adjusting his tone to appeal to Western audiences, but his Chinese rhetoric is often saturated with a wolf-warrior mindset, focusing on domestic audiences too.

With Xie Feng as China’s next ambassador to the U.S., we can expect more certainty and fewer surprises. Xie Feng is a known quantity in China policy circles. Of course, in today’s China, the agency of individual diplomats has become less vital as all are looking up for policy signals and are more reluctant than ever to take the initiative. China’s sudden reversal of its COVID policy indicates this depressing dimension of Chinese political decision-making.  Nevertheless, the selection of Xie Feng and his experience also signals a slight glimpse of hope in how China may be re-approaching the Western world.