China is likely to nominate Xie Feng, a vice foreign minister and a U.S. specialist, as its new ambassador to Washington, according to people familiar with the matter, continuing a gradual tempering of the abrasive “Wolf Warrior” style that has defined Chinese diplomacy in recent years.
Beijing has been recalibrating its foreign policy in a bid to stabilize fraught ties with Washington and mitigate damage done to China’s global standing by its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and forceful pursuit of security, industrial and territorial interests, according to people working inside the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The hard-charging ethos that took hold among Chinese diplomats during the Trump administration, when Beijing saw itself as being under assault from the West, needs to be adjusted to reflect a changing international environment, they said.
