Posted 31/05/2024 by Geoff Wade
A little remarked upon feature of Chinese regional diplomacy has been on show recently. While China’s regular foreign ministry establishment, led by the Foreign Minister, maintains the country’s network of embassies and leads international negotiations, the Chinese Communist Party has its own parallel track to formal national diplomacy – the International Department. The Department has been active in both Australia and the region in its efforts to build relationships and this briefing provides a snapshot of the organisation and its work.
Over the last month, the head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s (CCPCC) International Department, Liu Jianchao, has made trips to New Zealand, Vanuatu and Japan. In addition, DFAT Secretary Jan Adams and SA Governor Frances Adamson have visited Liu Jianchao in Beijing.
Source: Mäjilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan/Wikimedia Commons
In November last year, Liu Jianchao visited Australia, and a month earlier, his deputy Guo Yezhou, led a delegation to Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea [Chinese-language source].
That was the first visit to Australia by a serving head of the CCPCC International Department and, while politicians from the Pacific Island states have previously met with CCPCC International Department officials online and in China, this also appears to have been the first time that an International Department delegation had visited the Pacific. These visits reflected the CCP policy underlined in the ‘Regulations on the Communist Party of China Leading Foreign Affairs Work’, recently discussed by the CCP Politburo, whereby party officials are being further tasked with leading diplomatic roles.
The Chinese Communist Party’s International Department (formerly International Liaison Department) is a complex body. While nominally the arm of the party tasked with maintaining relations with political parties beyond China, scholars have examined the evolution of the body’s functions since its founding in 1951 as a correlate of the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A declassified CIA report from the 1970s lays out the role of the institution at that time, as the body reorganised following the Cultural Revolution. The activities of the International Department were further detailed in a 2016 study.
China scholar David Shambaugh notes of the CCPCC International Department (ID):
Over the past eight decades of the ID’s existence, it has performed a mixture of positive and negative roles. On the negative side, it has sought to subvert foreign governments and has smuggled weapons to insurgent groups. It has been a missionary of revolution, a propaganda agent, an intelligence collector, and supporter of brutal regimes such as the Khmer Rouge. More positively and more recently, however, the ID has served as an alternative diplomatic channel and secret envoy in sensitive negotiations with North Korea (and possibly Iran), a vehicle to learn from abroad to aid China’s modernisation, a conduit to introduce foreign officials and experts to China and as a means to build ties with foreign societies and political parties.
The role of the International Department appears to have been injected with new vigour over recent years, supporting the thesis of Jichang Lulu and Martin Hála that the party is promoting it as a renewed Comintern, undergirding the CCP’s key role in a ‘Community of Common Destiny for Mankind’. The PRC now uses the titles ‘minister’ and ‘vice minister’ for officials of the International Department, eliding the distinction between party and state functions, a trend occurring widely across the PRC administration.
The appointment in June 2022 of Liu Jianchao as head of the ID [Chinese-language source] to replace Song Tao saw even greater global activity by the body (Liu formerly headed the PRC foreign ministry’s Information Department and served as the ministry’s spokesperson). Liu has since been travelling the globe, meeting with a wide range of politicians and United Front figures including in the UK, Italy, France, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. In October 2022, at the 20th party congress, Liu was elected to the CCP Central Committee and in early 2024, travelled to and had meetings across the United States. Liu has been named as the most likely next PRC foreign minister.
Although since removed from his post, Liu’s deputy, Guo Yezhou, who led the International Department delegation to Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea last year, had also been travelling widely on behalf of the CCP, with visits to nations including: Pakistan (2015), Australia (2016 and 2018), New Zealand (2016), Philippines (2018) and the US (2016 and virtually in 2021). Guo is now Deputy Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, under Wang Yi.
Another effort to expand the influence of the International Department in Southeast Asia occurred in May 2022, when China’s new ambassador, Sun Haiyan, arrived in Singapore. She was not a ‘typical career diplomat’, and had been with the CCP’s International Department where she had served as director-general of the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, director-general of the Bureau of Public Information and Communication and director-general of the bureau in charge of exchanges with South and Southeast Asian countries. However, a year later, Sun Haiyan was recalled to Beijing to take up a position as a deputy head of the CCP’s International Department and has recently led missions to Bangladesh, Maldives and Nepal.
The International Department has been active in its efforts to engage with Australian organisations and politicians from both major parties over the years, including:
In July 2015, deputy head of the International Department, Xu Luping, led a delegation [Chinese-language source] to participate in the ALP National Conference in Melbourne and when Senator Dastyari travelled to China in January 2016, ‘the trip was supported by the International Department of the Communist Party of China’. In March 2016, the NSW branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs hosted the deputy head of the International Department, Guo Yezhou, and 7 of his subordinates in Sydney. Then, in December 2018, Guo Yezhou led a CCP delegation [Chinese-language source] which participated in the Labor Party’s national conference held in Adelaide. During that visit, Guo Yezhou further met with Nick Greiner (national president of the Liberal Party), South Australian senator, Simon Birmingham, and South Australian Premier Steven Marshall.
During his Australian trip last year, Liu Jianchao met with Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Trade Minister Don Farrell, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Nationals Leader David Littleproud, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Jan Adams and spoke at the Australia China Relations Institute [Chinese language sources].
While the CCP’s International Department remains little-known, it appears that it may be playing an increasing role in our region, particularly as an element in the growing push from China for expanded exchanges between parties and legislatures of regional states and those in China. What is less clear is the relationship between the two tracks of China’s diplomacy and how best to engage with them.