Wang Yi’s last press conference

LEE DO-SUNG
The author is a Beijing correspondent of JTBC.

Foreign correspondents in China from media outlets all over the world gathered at the Beijing Media Center in the early morning of March 7. Security was tight from the entrance. Journalists’ cars were allowed to enter after verifying their press ID with their name, photo and affiliation.

When I entered the building, I felt like I was in the departure hall at an international airport. I was searched head to toe through a full body scan and metal detector. I could get to the conference room on the second floor only after going through the strenuous process. That day, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a press conference.

The press conference was to start at 10 a.m., but reporters competed for the good seats. They arrived three hours before the conference, and none of the 300 seats were empty. Nearly 100 cameras were pointed at the podium.

At 10 a.m. sharp, the foreign minister appeared. After finishing his prepared greeting, he spent more than 1 hour and 30 minutes taking questions. He got questions from 21 domestic and foreign reporters and answered each of them. Especially on the Korean Peninsula issues, Wang said, “The fundamental way [to address the Korean Peninsula issues] is to resolve the reasonable security concerns of North Korea.”

When the conference ended, some reporters dashed to the podium and poured out their questions. One Japanese reporter complained that he was not given a chance to ask questions.

There may be no next chance to ask questions, as it is likely to be Wang’s last press conference as foreign minister. Wang, 70, served as foreign minister for 10 years. He was promoted to the vice premier-level head of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Wang has been serving both posts since July 2023 after his successor, Qin Gang, was dismissed.

It was a temporary measure for Wang to also take the foreign minister’s position, which is a rank lower. Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the CCP, is mentioned as the next foreign minister. Liu, a former spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, served as ambassador to the Philippines and Indonesia. In March 2015, when the discussion on the Thaad deployment was in full swing, Liu visited Seoul for diplomatic consultations.

Earlier, Wang left “Korea” out in his New Year’s speech. While explaining the direction of China’s foreign policy, he discussed the United States, Russia and Japan in turn, but he didn’t even mention Korea, which implies the current state of the estranged Korea-China relationship. We need to pay attention to the direction of change in China’s foreign policy in the future.