Explainer: Is China rethinking its 'wolf warrior' diplomacy?

China has transferred a senior diplomat closely associated with the Foreign Ministry's more confrontational shift in recent years to a new role, in the latest sign that Beijing is rethinking its so-called 'wolf warrior' approach, according to Bloomberg.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, 50, has been named deputy director of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, the Foreign Ministry said on its website on Monday.

While technically a lateral move, the new post is far less prominent than the spokesperson's podium, where Zhao had since February 2020 become one of China's most prominent public officials, with almost 8 million followers on the Weibo social media platform.

The move comes less than two weeks after China's former ambassador to the US, Qin Gang — a one-time Foreign Ministry spokesman himself — was named foreign minister. Qin, 56, has demonstrated a more traditional, less social-media-driven approach and signalled a desire to mend ties with nations like the US and Australia, some of the most prominent targets of Zhao's criticism.

The personnel shifts coincide with a push by President Xi Jinping to reengage the US and its allies, holding his first in-person summit with President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia, in November. Xi has sought to improve relations with leaders of top US allies, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian leader Anthony Albanese.