■ SChinese

ource: Shambaugh, David, “China’s ‘Quiet Diplomacy’: The International Department of the
Communist Party”, China: An International Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1 (March 2007),
pp. 26–54. NUS Press Singapore, reproduced by permission of the East Asian Institute,
National University of Singapore, NUS Press.

China’s “Quiet Diplomacy”: The International

Department of the Chinese Communist Party

David Shambaugh

The International Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese

Communist Party (CCP/ID) is one of the most important, but least well under-
stood, organs of China’s foreign affairs system (waishi xitong). It is a relatively
large and quite active organisation, operates worldwide (and throughout
China) and performs a variety of important functions for the CCP and gov-
ernment. Yet it is a difficult institution to research and learn about, and many
things that one would like to know about the ID are simply not knowable.1
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 chan-
nel 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. Like many other aspects of Chinese
diplomacy, the ID has morphed from a disruptive and revolutionary institution
into one that promotes reform at home and the status quo abroad.
While the ID operates relatively quietly and its activities are not reported
in foreign media or analysed by scholars of Chinese foreign policy, the CCP/
ID is not a secret or covert organisation (although it is involved in intelligence

1 The author is grateful to anonymous readers of earlier drafts of this article for posing a vari-
ety of questions about the ID, and has attempted to respond to those for which data is avail-
able. However, given the relative dearth of information available about the ID, many good
questions are simply not answerable. Scholars wishing to learn about the ID are forced to
work with a handful of published materials and an inability to systematically interview per-
sonnel in the ID.

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collection).2 It is one of the few Central Committee organs that maintains a

public website (<http://www.idcpc.org.cn>) which is quite informative about
the Department’s structure and activities. The current CCP/ID director, Wang
Jiarui, even claimed that there is an initiative underway to “further enhance
the transparency of Party diplomacy”.3 The ID now sports a shiny new 14-sto-
rey glass office building in a prominent location on West Chang’an Boulevard
in central Beijing with “CPC International Department” emblazoned on a red
neon sign on top of the building.
There are various reasons why the ID and its role in Chinese diplomacy are
not well known outside of China (or inside China for that matter). First, the
Foreign Ministry is viewed (appropriately) as the primary institutional locus
of foreign policy making and implementation in China and thus receives the
lion’s share of attention in Chinese diplomacy.4 Although the ID does become
involved in sending high-level Chinese leaders abroad and hosting foreign
leaders and officials in China, its main functions are not at the state-to-state
level—hence the Foreign Ministry monopolises the foreign affairs spot-
light. Secondly, party-to-party relations (the ID’s principal responsibility) are
not normally considered as normal or important parts of a nation’s foreign
policy—although they have always played important roles for commu-
nist states.5 Third, the ID intentionally keeps a low profile, carrying out its
exchanges without publicity. For these reasons, the CCP/ID has remained

2 Scholars of Chinese foreign policy have similarly been neglectful of the ID’s roles and activi-
ties. A. Doak Barnett’s and Lu Ning’s studies include only very brief descriptions of the CCP/
ID. David M. Lampton’s (ed.) similarly contains only one limited discussion of the ID (in Lu
Ning’s chapter—which is lifted verbatim from his book), and Yufan Hao and Lin Su’s (edited)
volume contains no references to the ID. See A. Doak Barnett, The Making of Foreign Policy
in China: Structure and Process (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985); Lu Ning, The Dynamics of
Foreign Policy Decision Making in China (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000); David M. Lampton
(ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2001); Yufan Hao and Lin Su (eds.), China’s Foreign Policy Making
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005).
3 “IDCPC Minister on CPC International Work in 2005”, Renmin ribao internet edition, in FBIS,
28 Dec. 2005.
4 While the Foreign Ministry is involved in making foreign policy in China, it is also well under-
stood that many foreign policy issues are debated and decisions made among Chinese lead-
ers through the Foreign Affairs Leading Group (FALG), leaving the Foreign Ministry (and
other organs) to implement them. The ID has always had a seat on the FALG, although Lu
Ning claims that it lost this seat in 1998 (in Lampton, op cit., p. 53). Bureaucratically, as a
Central Committee Department, the ID reports directly to the Central Committee’s Foreign
Affairs Office (Zhongyang waiban) and General Office (Zhongyan bangongting).
5 Nor is there a scholarly study available on global party-to-party relations.

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“under the radar” as its activities have gone essentially unnoticed by foreign
media, scholars, governments and intelligence agencies.
However, the ID has not always maintained such a relatively low profile.
As discussed below, it was a prominent foreign policy actor during the 1950s
and 1960s, playing a particularly important role prior to and during the period
of the Sino-Soviet Alliance (1950–60) and Split (1960–2), as well as in China’s
Third World revolutionary diplomacy during the 1960s. In those days, some
observers noted that “The International Liaison Department (ILD) had an
almost unlimited charter in external affairs, wielding far greater influence than
its government counterpart, the Foreign Ministry. . . . The ILD operated both
behind and above the government.”6 This was certainly true in intra-bloc rela-
tions, but also throughout the developing world and Europe. After the Cultural
Revolution, as China moved into the reform era, the ID lowered its profile
and altered its activities while the Foreign Ministry simultaneously expanded
the PRC’s governmental ties around the world. As the ID has concentrated its
efforts on political parties and non-governmental organisations, its work has
been complimentary to that of the Foreign Ministry and other ministries that
deal with their government counterparts abroad. Today the ID plays a number
of important roles in China’s relations with foreign countries all around the
world, as well as being a key conduit to different organisations and reforms
inside China.

Roles of the CCP/ID

The ID is one of five principal departments of the Central Committee of the

CCP.7 The Department simplified its English name from the International
Liaison Department (ILD) to the International Department in 1995, although
the original term Zhongyang Duiwai Lianluo Bu has been maintained in
Chinese.8 Today the CCP/ID is responsible for a number of functions and activ-
ities, including:

6 John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992),
p. 324.
7 The others are the Organisation Department, Propaganda Department, United Front
Department and the Central Discipline Inspection Commission.
8 The name conversion occurred around the same time that the CCP Propaganda Department
changed its English name to Publicity Department (although also maintaining the original in
Chinese). The abbreviations ILD and ID are used interchangeably throughout this article.

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• Developing and maintaining ties with fraternal socialist/communist parties

and organisations worldwide;
• Maintaining and developing party-to-party relations with a wide variety of
non-socialist/communist political parties (except fascist or racist parties)
worldwide;
• Administering “private sector” liaison organisations to facilitate contact
with think tanks, NGOs, and individuals worldwide;
• Collecting current intelligence and information on the foreign policies,
domestic political scene and political parties, and societies in various
nations worldwide;
• Sending special investigation teams abroad to research important topics
related to China’s reforms;
• Contributing to the work of Chinese embassies worldwide (usually moni-
toring domestic politics and liaising with domestic political parties, move-
ments, and personages);
• Working with other CCP Central Committee departments and State Council
ministries to facilitate their work overseas (e.g., assisting the United Front
Department concerning Taiwan, the External Propaganda Leading Group/
Information Office of the State Council concerning China’s image abroad, or
the National People’s Congress on parliamentary exchanges);
• Arranging visits of central-, provincial-, municipal- and occasionally sub-
provincial level CCP officials abroad;
• Hosting foreign leaders, politicians, party officials, ex-officials, as well as a
range of foreign policy specialists, on tours of China.

While exchanges with political parties abroad can be sub-divided into a num-
ber of different types (see below), the above list of ID responsibilities and
activities is the broad range of current ID work. Chinese documents, however,
do not define them as such. A survey of a variety of CCP books and documents
published over the past decade invariably list an identical (verbatim) set of
seven functions for the ID:

1. According to Central Committee directives and principles of exchanges

with other parties, and international considerations, organise and estab-
lish friendly exchanges with foreign political parties.
2. Research the international environment, important international ques-
tions, bilateral and multilateral relationships, important social and
political ideational trends and certain countries’ political parties and
policies.

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3. Promote the international communist movement, Marxism-Leninism,

socialism and other related theories.
4. Promote the international worker’s movement, push forward and
strengthen the national democratic movement and promote the people’s
struggle for social justice in various countries.
5. Promote the activities and international people’s movement to safeguard
world peace; increase the reputation and impact in the world of the
Communist Party of China and People’s Republic of China; work hard to
ensure a peaceful international environment in the interests of socialist
development in China.
6. Explore direct assistance in the Four Modernisations’ work; carry out
economic and technological cooperation in the course of party relations
and mass organisation exchanges.
7. Entrusted by the Central Committee, arrange the foreign affairs work of
mass organisations, and organise foreign exchanges of Central level and
other Party organs.9

Such generic descriptions do not reveal much about the actual work of the ID,
but it is nonetheless useful to see how the ID’s work is defined in inner-Party
discourse.
The ID receives about 200 delegations from abroad and dispatches approxi-
mately 100 delegations overseas every year.10 In recent years the ID has been
directly involved—more so than in the past—in sensitive diplomatic issues.
According to Director Wang Jiarui, “[In 2005] we actively mediated the nuclear
issue on the Korean Peninsula through inter-party channels; kept communica-
tion between parties in difficult times of China-Japan relations; promoted talks
at a sensitive time when the Palestine-Israel situation is variable; discussed

9 Translated by the author from Wang Fuchun, Waishi guanli xue gaikuang (Survey of Foreign
Affairs Work) (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2003). Virtually identical wording can
be found in the following CCP descriptions of the ID: Zhongguo gongchandang da zidian
(Encyclopedia of the Chinese Communist Party) (Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guangbo chuban-
she, 1991); Zhongguo gongchandang dangwu gongzuo da Zidian (Encyclopedia of CCP Party
Work) (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1993); Zhongguo gongchandang zuzhi gongzuo quanshu
(Encyclopedia of CCP Organisational Work) (Beijing: Baishan chubanshe, 1996); Zhongguo
gongchandang dangyuan xuexi xiuyang da zidian (Encyclopedia for Study and Training by
CCP Members) (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1991).
10 “External Relations of the Communist Party of China” (25 Sept. 2003), printed description
given to the author by the CCP/ID in October 2003. This figure coincides with ID Minister
Wang Jiarui’s claim that in 2005 “over 300 delegations and 2000 members have exchanged
visits through inner-party channels”. Ibid.

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with parties in different countries how to establish a just and reasonable

international order and economic order; and pushed the reform of the United
Nations towards a just and reasonable direction.”11
The ID has indeed been very active in recent years maintaining direct chan-
nels of communications with North Korea—for China as well as the other
members of the Six Party Talks. This has been particularly useful for the US,
which (under the Bush administration) has refused to talk directly bilaterally
with the government in Pyongyang. It would not be surprising if it played a
similar intermediary role between Washington and Tehran, or other nations
with which the US does not have diplomatic relations. As Director Wang indi-
cated, the ID has also kept the channels open to the LDP (and other Japanese
parties) during the Koizumi era, when official contacts were frozen. The ID is
very active in its exchanges with the foundations (stiftung) of German politi-
cal parties, all of which (expect one) maintain representative offices in China,
and European parties and NGOs in general. In the German case, this afforded
China excellent intelligence and contacts as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coali-
tion came to power.
By maintaining ties with non-ruling parties throughout the world, the ID
has been able to keep excellent track of domestic politics in various nations
and to have established contacts with a wide range of politicians and experts
who subsequently staff governments after they come to power. This kind of
“co-optive diplomacy” sometimes pays dividends for the CCP.

History of the CCP/ID

The history of the CCP’s (and the ID’s) interactions with foreign communist
parties is long and complex. It has evolved considerably over the years.
Following its establishment in 1921, the CCP engaged in exchanges with the
Soviet Communist Party and Comintern during the First, Second, and Third
Internationals.12 During this time, the Comintern advised the CCP on tac-
tics during the Shanghai underground period and (following the 1927 “White
Terror”) in the Jiangxi Soviet base area.13 From 1922 (when the CCP became a

11 Ibid.
12 The classic study on the Comintern is Julius Braunthal, History of the International, 1914–
1943 (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1967).
13 Much of this section draws upon Wang Fuchun, Waishi guanli xue gaikuang, ibid.; and
Li Jian, Tianqian tongtu: Zhongguo gongchandang duiwai jiaozhu jishi (A Natural Moat
and Thoroughfare: Recollections of the Chinese Communist Party’s Foreign Exchanges)

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member of the Comintern) until 1943, the Comintern dispatched a total of ten
representatives to advise the CCP on revolutionary strategy and tactics.14
The advice given by the Comintern advisors, and the training received by
CCP personnel (especially the so-called “28 Bolsheviks”) in the Soviet Union at
the Comintern-run “Toilers of the East University” and Sun Yat-sen University
was often at odds with Mao’s thinking about revolutionary strategy and tac-
tics.15 At first, the Comintern encouraged the CCP into a united front with the
Kuomintang (KMT) in order to penetrate the KMT and organise “a bloc within”.16
The strategy was intended to disrupt some KMT activities and to use the united
front cover in order to expand CCP recruits and organise trade unions among
the urban proletariat. This Comintern advice was a classic urban insurrectional
strategy, as the Soviet Bolsheviks had experienced. This strategy collapsed with
Chiang Kai-shek’s sudden purge and massacre of the suspected communists in
Shanghai in April 1927.
Thereafter, the CCP split, with one faction remaining underground in
Shanghai and another following Mao and Zhu De to the rugged mountains
in Jiangxi Province. In their new base area, in 1931, the CCP assigned Wang
Jiaxiang to direct the Party’s foreign affairs, and in 1934 the CCP established its
first “foreign ministry” with Wang in charge (Wang would subsequently go on
to lead the ID).17 Otto Braun and other Comintern advisors continued to coun-
sel Mao on tactics against the KMT military’s tactics of “annihilation”. Mao and
Zhu ultimately rejected this advice, as they had done earlier in Shanghai, and the
Red Army broke through the KMT cordon and embarked on the Long March.
Nearly two years after fleeing the Jiangxi Soviet the Red Army remnants
reached the mountain base area of Yan’an in northern Shaanxi Province. There,
in 1937, the CCP recouped and reorganised. One of Mao’s first moves was to

(Beijing: Dangdai shijie chubanshe, 2001). Also see Ye Yuehai, Jianguo hou zhongguo
gongchandang zhengdang waijiao lilun yanjiu (Theoretical Research on the Chinese
Communist Party’s Party Diplomacy since the Establishment of the Country) (Beijing:
Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003).
14 Cai Wu, “A Review and Reflections on the 80 Years of Foreign Contacts of the Communist
Party of China” (1 July 2001) on the International Department of Central Committee of
CPC website at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/ article/20010701.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].
15 For more on the Comintern’s training programs and efforts in Asia see Peter Hopkirk,
Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995).
16 See Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China (Leiden: Brill, 1991).
17 Michael Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1996), p. 227.

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dispatch Wang Jiaxing to Moscow.18 Wang returned a year later, in August 1938,
and was assigned to direct the daily work of the CCP Military Commission.
From 1939–49, Wang shuttled between a number of Party positions—including
running the Central Committee Research Department (1941–2), managing the
daily needs of Military Commission members (1942–3) and administering
the CCP Propaganda Department (1943–4). In 1946, after becoming a member
of the Central Committee at the Seventh CCP Congress, Wang was sent back
to Moscow for another year. When he returned in May 1947 he worked in the
northeastern liberated cities on propaganda and Party organisational work.
As part of the CCP’s Yan’an reorganisation, the “communications section”
(jiaotongju), which had existed since 1927 to liaise with the Comintern and inter-
act with other foreigners,19 was upgraded to a Central Committee department
and provided a larger staff.20 It was this organ that hosted the “Dixie Mission”
of the US Army, and the CCP-KMT mediation missions of Generals George C.
Marshall and Patrick Hurley. The Communications Office had close ties with
the “Social Department” (Shehui Bu), established in February 1939, which
was the intelligence agency forerunner to the CCP Investigation Department
(1941–83) and contemporary Ministry of State Security (1983–).21 In 1942,
according to one source, the CCP replaced the Communications Department
with an Overseas Work Commission (Haiwai Gongzuo Weiyuanhui, usually
abbreviated simply as the Hai Wei), which added the responsibilities of
“researching the revolutionary potential in Eastern countries and among
overseas Chinese”.22 The Hai Wei also established a training bureau (peixun
ban) to train Asian communists from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines,
Thailand, Japan and Burma.
In September 1948, after the Xibaipo Conference, the CCP established the
Third Bureau of the United Front Department (Tongzhanbu Disanshi) to take
over responsibility for overseas Chinese and liaison with foreign parties—
thus “merging together the Party’s united front and international work”.23
In March of 1949, after the Red Army had seized Beijing and the CCP occupied

18 Wang’s biography for this period is derived largely from Zhang Heng and Jian Fei (eds.),
Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhi renshi jianming tupu (Brief Atlas of Central Committee
Organisational Personnel) (Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 2003), p. 163.
19 Ibid., p. 108.
20 Michael Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy, op cit., p. 315 (n. 31).
21 Zhang Heng and Jian Fei (eds.), Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhi renshi jianming tupu, op cit.,
p. 109.
22 Wang Fuchun, Waishi guanli xue gaikuang, op cit., p. 212.
23 Ibid.

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the Zhongnanhai next to the Forbidden City, the Third Bureau changed its
name to the Second Bureau. In February 1950 the Central Committee directed
that the Second Bureau be converted to the “Eastern Countries Revolutionary
Situation Research Office”, as a step towards expanding CCP assistance to other
revolutionary movements in Asia. But, in August of that year, United Front
Work Department Head Li Weihan recommended that the CCP needed its own
international [liaison] department (Guoji Lianluo Bu). The Central Committee
approved the recommendation on 12 January 1951.
Thus, in March 1951, the CCP/ILD (Zhongyang Lianluo Bu) was formally
established and its work demarcated from that of the United Front Department.
Wang Jiaxiang was recalled as ambassador to Moscow and was appointed the
first director of the ILD.
For the first half of the 1950s, the new ILD concentrated on building rela-
tions with Asian communist parties on the one hand and the East European
and Soviet Communist Parties on the other. Before and after the 1955 meet-
ing of the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organisation meeting in Bandung,
Indonesia, the ILD expanded its links with socialist parties and movements
in Africa and the Middle East. This included inviting numbers of youth, wom-
en’s, and worker’s delegations from these countries to China. At the CCP’s
Eighth Party Congress in September 1956, 290 representatives from commu-
nist and worker’s parties in 56 countries sent delegates at the invitation of
the ILD.24 However, two months later, things would change for the ILD. In
November, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his “secret speech” to the Twentieth
Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)—thus
beginning the Sino-Soviet fissure and competition for allegiance among com-
munist and other “national liberation” movements worldwide.
Chinese and Soviet Communist Party relations became progressively more
strained in the wake of the secret speech, and the ILD found itself at the nexus
of the frictions. In 1961 the ILD established a temporary office (linshi banzi)
to draft propaganda in the “polemical war” (lunzhan) against Soviet “revision-
ism”, including the renowned “Nine Letters” and “Twenty-Four Articles”.25 The
dénouement came in an explosive confrontation between an ILD delegation
(led by Peng Zhen) and a CPSU delegation (led by Mikhail Suslov) in Bucharest
in 1962. Thereafter, for the next 20 years, countering the CPSU and Soviet Union
became the core mission of the ILD.
Also in 1962, as the famine and economic catastrophe of the Great Leap
Forward gripped China, ILD Director Wang Jiaxiang and Deputy Directors

24 Ibid., p. 213.
25 Ibid.

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Wu Xiuquan and Liu Ningyi wrote to Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Foreign
Minister Chen Yi, suggesting that the only way out of China’s crippling eco-
nomic difficulties and international isolation was to improve relations with
the US and the Soviet Union, avoid needless warfare with neighbours such as
India (which China had just attacked) and reduce support for revolutionary
insurgent struggles around the world. These heretical policy recommenda-
tions became known as the “three peaces (reconciliations) and one reduction”
(san he yi shao).26
Wang’s advocacy was attacked by Kang Sheng, Politburo czar for intel-
ligence and internal security. Kang had long had misgivings about Wang
Jiaxiang, and they developed a personal animus and institutional rivalry. As
Kang’s own political star was rising and his involvement in the Sino-Soviet
polemics increased, he had designs on the ILD. Wang’s advocacy of relaxing
tensions with the West provided just the opening Kang needed, and he used
it as a pretext to remove Wang from his position—arguing that Wang’s “three
peaces” should be replaced with an uncompromising policy of the “three
non-peaces” (san wu he): no peaceful competition, no peaceful coexistence
and no peaceful transition to socialism. Under attack, Wang lived at home
under a form of house arrest and reportedly spent his time reading.
When the Cultural Revolution broke out in 1966, the ILD was quickly
affected. Kang Sheng, now a member of the infamous “Cultural Revolution
Small Group (CRSG)”, turned his sights on the ILD soon after he and the CRSG
had disposed of Beijing Mayor Peng Zhen.27 First, Kang Sheng dispatched his
deputy in the Central Cultural Revolution Group, Wang Li, nine times to inves-
tigate the ILD, and Wang also wrote the big-character poster (dazibao) attack-
ing Wang Jiaxiang on 9 June 1966, accusing him of pursuing a revisionist and
capitulationist line in foreign affairs by advocating the “three peaces and one
reduction” policy.28 Kang then personally confronted Wang at a “struggle ses-
sion” (douzheng hui) of all ILD staff on 21 June 1966, charging him with turning
the ILD into a “bastion of revisionism”. Wang was purged. A year later his depu-
ties Wu Xiuquan and Liu Ningyi, and a number of other ILD cadres, followed.

26 Thomas Kampen, “The CCP’s Central Committee Departments (1921–1991): A Study of

Their Evolution”, China Report 29, no. 3 (1993): 308.
27 Zhong Kan (pseudonym), Kang Sheng pingzhuan (A Critical Biography of Kang Sheng)
(Beijing: Hongqi chubanshe, 1982).
28 Roderick MacFarquahar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press, 2006), p. 97.

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Wang was subjected to humiliations and beatings at the hands of Red

Guards before being put under house arrest near Beihai Lake in Beijing.29 He
tried in vain to vindicate himself by writing letters appealing directly to Zhou
Enlai and Mao throughout this period denying that the “three peace and one
reduction” initiative (for which he was vilified) was his original idea.30 Wang’s
family also suffered greatly during this period. His son, niece and sister all com-
mitted suicide stemming from Red Guard persecution. On 23 October 1969,
Wang was transferred to do hard labour in Xinyang, Henan.31 He contracted
pneumonia there and was hospitalised until some associates got word about
his condition to Zhou Enlai and Mao in 1970, who approved an order that Wang
could be transferred back to the capital for treatment in October 1970.32 After
months of hospitalisation, Wang recovered his health and began his letter-
writing campaign afresh, appealing to Zhou Enlai for reinstatement. Finally, at
the Tenth Party Congress in August 1973, Wang Jiaxiang was politically rehabili-
tated and reappointed as a Central Committee member. Wang Jiaxiang finally
succumbed to heart failure on 25 January 1974 at the age of 68.
During the Cultural Revolution, ILD activities ground to a virtual (but not
complete) halt. In the words of former ID Director (and current Vice Foreign
Minister) Dai Bingguo, “During the Cultural Revolution, the ultraleftist trend
of thought fomented by Kang Sheng and the Gang of Four dealt a heavy blow
to the international work of the Party, and the scope of the Party’s foreign
exchanges continually contracted.”33 The ILD went through a year of internal
struggle sessions and purges between June 1966 and August 1967.34
Formal relations with foreign parties during this period were reduced from
80–90 to around 10,35 including the Albanian and Romanian Communist par-

29 Wang’s tortuous experiences during the Cultural Revolution are described in detail in Xu
Zehao, Wang Jiaxiang zhuan (Biography of Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo
chubanshe, 2006), pp. 374–96.
30 Xu Zehao, Wang Jiaxiang nianpu, 1906–1974 (Chronicle of Wang Jiaxiang) (Beijing:
Zhongyang wenzhai chubanshe, 2001), pp. 500–3.
31 Ibid., p. 505.
32 Ibid., p. 507.
33 Dai Bingguo, “Exploiting the Advantages of Party Diplomacy in the Service of the Overall
Interests of the Work of the Entire Party and Whole Country—In Commemoration of the
50th Anniversary of the Establishment of the International Department of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China” (Jan. 2001), available on the International
Department of Central Committee of CPC website at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/
article/200101.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].
34 These are described in Xu Zehao, Wang Jiaxiang nianpu, op cit., pp. 496–502.
35 Wang Fuchun, Waishi guanli xue gaikuang, op cit., p. 214.

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ties, the Vietnamese Communist Party, Pathet Lao, Khmer Rouge, and insur-
gent communist parties in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. The
ILD, in conjunction with the PLA General Logistics Department, funnelled
small arms and money to these groups, and set up a number of long-range
radio transmitters in Yunnan Province for broadcast into Southeast Asia. In
1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, the ILD had also been instrumen-
tal in sending arms and advice to the Indonesia communists (PKI) prior to
their failed 1965 coup d’etat attempt (and subsequent bloodbath). The col-
lapsed coup stained the ILD’s reputation domestically, and China’s reputation
regionally. The ILD also continued to be deeply engaged in the polemical war
against the “revisionist and social-imperialist” Soviet Union during these years.
To the extent that China maintained a presence on the global stage during
the Cultural Revolution years, as the Foreign Ministry ceased to function, it
was through the subversive activities of the ILD. During these years the ILD
was overseen by Kang Sheng who became de facto Director during 1967–71
following the purge of Liu Ningyi.
In 1971, the ILD experienced a partial recovery with the appointment of a
new director, Geng Biao, although until the Gang of Four was overthrown in
1976 the Department remained traumatised and its activities attenuated. Like
everything else in China, the ILD enjoyed a full reconstitution and revival after
the downfall of the Gang. The ILD was given responsibility for establishing
party relations with African liberation movements in 1977 (in order to com-
pete with the Soviet Union), Yugoslavia in 1978, West European Communist
parties in 1979, the Soviet and East European communist parties in 1985 and
European social democratic parties in 1986.36 The decision to engage the
latter was a significant step for the CCP, as it had previously eschewed ties with
such parties, but was part of the broader normalisation of Chinese diplomacy.
It also helped China in several aspects of domestic reforms (see below). This
opening to the non-socialist world and revitalisation of ties with fraternal par-
ties was overseen by Wu Xueqian and Qiao Shi. Both had spent more than 15
years in the ILD before being appointed as deputy directors in 1978 following
the Third Plenum.37 During the mid-1980s, Wu was appointed Foreign Minister
while Qiao was promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee (following a
one-year stint as ILD Director). For these two individuals, a career in the ILD
served as a springboard to much higher office.

36 Ibid., p. 215.
37 Thomas Kampen, “The CCP’s Central Committee Departments”, op cit.

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Current Personnel and Organisation of the CCP/ID

Except for a brief time in the early 1980s, the directors of the CCP/ID have
enjoyed fairly lengthy tenures. Table 1 lists CCP/ID Directors from 1951. The
first six were political “heavyweights”, while the last five have been of substan-
tially lower profile and lesser rank in the Party hierarchy (at the time of their
service).

Table 1 Directors of the International Department38

Wang Jiaxiang 1/1951–3/1966

Liu Ningyi (acting) 5/1966–4/1968
Kang Sheng (de facto) 4/1968–1/1971
Geng Biao 1/1971–1/1979
Ji Pengfei 1/1979–4/1982
Qiao Shi 4/1982–7/1983
Qian Liren 7/1983–12/1985
Zhu Liang 12/1985–3/1993
Li Shuzheng 3/1993–8/1997
Dai Bingguo 8/1997–3/2003
Wang Jiarui 3/2003–

Unlike most of his predecessors, current Director Wang Jiarui’s career path
was not within the ID. He worked his way up through the Jilin and Shandong
provincial apparat, as well as serving in the State Council Economic and
Trade Commission in Beijing during the early 1990s. In 2000 Wang’s career
track changed as he was appointed Vice Minister and Deputy Director of the
CCP/ID.39
Wang is currently assisted by five deputy directors: Ma Wenpu, Zhang
Zhijun, Liu Hongcai, Chen Fengxiang and Tan Jialin. All of their career paths
illustrate that work in the ID tends to be a lifelong job, except that spending
some time working in a city Party Committee (gaining first-hand experience at
the local level) seems to be a requirement for promotion from Director General

38 Zhang Heng and Jian Fei, Zhonggong zhongyang zuzhi renshi iianming tupu, op cit., p. 110..
39 Wang’s biography can be found on the International Department of Central Committee
of CPC website at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/profile/wjr.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].

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to vice-ministerial status.40 Another notable career pattern is at least one tour

of duty in the political section of a Chinese embassy abroad. Each deputy
director works his way up through a different geographical bureau within the
ID. Thus, they together offer the Department global coverage and presumably
each one retains some oversight responsibilities for their former bureaus.
Ma Wenpu has served with the ID since 1970. He worked his way up
through Bureau VII, the bureau responsible for North American, Oceanic,
and Scandinavian affairs—including 12 years as Director-General of the
Department (1982–94) and a four-year stint in the Chinese Embassy in Sweden.
In 1994–5 Ma was dispatched to Hunan Province to serve as Deputy Secretary
of the Changsha Party Committee, but returned to Beijing in 1995 to become
Deputy Secretary-General of the ID in 1995 and was promoted to the rank of
Vice Minister two years later. At 61, Ma is the eldest and most senior ranking
of the ID vice-ministers today, and has broad responsibility for the ID, running
it on a day-to-day basis. He was born in Hebei Province in 1945.
The current vice-minister in charge of Bureaus V, VII and VIII is Zhang
Zhijun. A very suave but tough-minded individual, Zhang is one of the more
public faces of the ID. He travels the world constantly and widely, in part
because of these qualities and in part because he is extremely proficient in
English. In lieu of sending a PLA representative, Zhang was dispatched as the
Chinese representative to the high-level 42nd Munich Conference on Security
Policy in February 2006.41 Not all ID personnel are as sophisticated as Zhang
Zhijun (indeed, interactions with many in China, Europe and the US over the
years indicate that many are quite ideologically rigid).42 Zhang was born in
Jiangsu Province in February 1953. During the Cultural Revolution, at age 16,
he was “sent down” to the countryside to be a construction worker in remote
Heilongjiang Province. When Beijing University reopened in 1971, Zhang
gained entry as an “affirmative action” worker-peasant-soldier student (gong-
nong-bing xueyuan), where he joined the CCP the same year. In 1973 he was
sent to the UK for study, as part of a group of hand-selected students which
included current Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and China’s current

40 Biographies of all these individuals are available on China Vitae website at <www. chinavi-
tae.com/biography> [20 June 2006].
41 Zhang Zhijun, “Speech at the 42nd Munich Conference on Security Policy”, available on
Munich Conference on Security Policy website at <http://www.securityconference.de/
konferenzen/rede.php?menu_2006=&menu_konferenzen=&sprach&=en&id=173&>
[20 June 2006].
42 This is a personal impression, but also one shared by American and European colleagues
who have interacted with the ID.

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ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong. Zhang returned to Beijing in 1975 after
two years in London and was immediately assigned to work in the ID. Over
the past 31 years, Zhang has worked his way up through the ranks, spending
21 years in the ID Research Bureau (a euphemism for the intelligence collec-
tion arm of the ID) before being assigned to work in the Party Committee of
Zibo City, Shandong. In September 2001, he was brought back to Beijing and
appointed as ID Vice Minister.43
Liu Hongcai was born in 1955 and is a native of Liaoning Province. He
attended Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute from 1971–5 and studied
Japanese. He joined the CCP in his final year and was assigned to the ID upon
graduation. From 1975–89, he worked his way up through Bureau II (Northeast
Asia and Indochina) and then served as First Secretary (Political) at the Chinese
Embassy in Tokyo. After returning to China in 1992, Liu spent a year serving as a
Vice Warden on a city district court in Jining, Shandong. There is then a seven-
year gap in his resume before he returned to the ID Bureau II, becoming the
Director General in 2000. In 2003 he was appointed as ID Vice Minister.
Chen Fengxiang was born in 1955 and is a native of Inner Mongolia. A grad-
uate of the Russian Department at Beijing University in 1974, he also joined
the Party while at Beida. However, rather than immediately going into the ID
upon graduation, Chen returned to work in Inner Mongolia for three years
before returning to teach in the International Politics Department at Beida
from 1979–84. In 1984, Chen was recruited into the ID where he was assigned to
the Soviet/East European Department (Bureau VI). In 1987–8 he was sent
to Moscow as an exchange student for a year of further language training. He
returned to work in Bureau VI as Deputy Director from 1988–1992 and was then
sent back to Moscow to serve as First Secretary in the Chinese Embassy from
1992–4. There is then a three-year gap in his published curriculum vitae. From
1997–8, Chen was assigned as a county magistrate in a court in rural Shaanxi
Province. He returned to the ID in 2003, serving as Deputy Secretary General
and then Vice Minster in 2004.
Finally, Tan Jialin’s background is the least clear. Born in 1954 in Jilin Province,
Tan joined the Party in 1984. He started to work in the ID in 1975, but it is unclear
in what capacities he served before his appointment as Deputy Director of the
ID General Office in 1994, a position he served in through 2003. The General
Office is the main administrative office in all CCP organs—responsible for all
personnel affairs, arranging meetings, document classification and circulation,

43 Zhang Zhijun biography (mimeo); and from China Vitae website at <http:ww.chinavitae
.com/biography_display.php?id=2142> [20 June 2006].

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archiving, etc. In 2003 he became the Deputy Party Secretary of the ID and was
promoted to the rank of Vice Minister in 2004.
Organisationally, the ID is composed of six functional offices, eight geo-
graphic bureaus, one affiliated “front” association and a publishing house (see
Figure 1).44 Altogether, in 2005, the ID had approximately 300 staff working in
China and another 30 abroad.45
The functional offices include:

• The General Office is responsible for coordinating and managing all

Department activities, paper flow and meetings; prepares memoranda for
decision-making at ministerial, vice-ministerial and bureau levels; organ-
ises media briefings; liaison with ID personnel abroad; liaison with other
CCP and government departments at central, provincial and sub-provincial
levels.
• The Research Office undertakes studies of the international situation, in­-
ternational political parties, domestic politics in foreign countries, the in­ter­-
national socialist movement, contemporary capitalism and current global
issues.
• The Protocol Bureau is responsible for all arrangements for receiving for-
eign dignitaries, delegations and individuals visiting China at the invitation
of the CCP or ID and organises all CCP or ID delegations abroad.
• The Personnel Bureau is responsible for ID personnel recruitment, assign-
ment, removal, retirement, training, payroll, housing and general welfare.
The bureau works in tandem with the CCP Organisation Department and
municipal authorities in carrying out these functions.
• The Party Committee is responsible for organising all Party activities within
the Department such as political study sessions, rectification campaigns,
improvement of workstyle and liaison with other CCP departments. It is
also charged with carrying out discipline inspection (anti-corruption) work
within the ID.
• The Information Centre compiles data on international issues and political
parties around the world for use in exchanges and research work. It com-
piles background briefing materials for ID personnel before going abroad
or receiving foreign visitors. It also maintains the Department’s internet

44 See “Office Lineup” on the International Department of Central Committee of CPC web-
site at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/profile/office.htm>; interview with ID official
[17 July 2004] Washington, DC.
45 Estimate given in interview with ID personnel, Nov. 2005.

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website and is in charge of communications and automation within the

Department and between the ID and its overseas personnel.

The ID also maintains a “front association” for liaison with foreigners: the
Chinese Association for International Understanding (Zhongguo Guoji Jiaoliu
Youhao Xiehui), or CAIFU. CAIFU maintains office, reception, meeting and
hotel space in and adjacent to the Wanshou Hotel in western Beijing. CAIFU
has published the monthly journal Guoji Jiaoliu (International Understanding)
since 1981, which offers an interesting survey of ID activities, party-to-party
relations, conferences held in China on foreign affairs, China’s foreign policy
and international diplomatic events. While the CCP/ID’s new high-rise build-
ing on West Chang’an Boulevard contains modern reception and conference
facilities, the ID continues to use the refurbished Wanshou Hotel facilities for
lodging and receiving many foreign visitors (the Wanshou is owned by the ID).
Many ID staff live in this neighbourhood.
The ID still maintains a large compound at 4 Fuxing Road in western Beijing
(still the Department’s formal address). This is the old headquarters of the ID
and is still used for ID staff housing, research offices and some other ID pur-
poses. Several buildings in this compound have also undergone renovation,
reopening in 2005. This is also where the ID’s publishing house is located—the
Contemporary World Publishers (Dangdai Shijie Chubanshe). The press pub-
lishes a range of studies on foreign political parties,46 the international socialist
movement,47 and a very useful annual compendium on the ID’s exchanges. A
sampling of its publications can be found at: <http://www.worldpress.com.cn/
introduction.index1.asp>.
The ID’s eight geographic bureaus are organised in a somewhat unorthodox
way, but this system dates back several decades:

• Bureau I (South and Southeast Asian Affairs)

• Bureau II (Northeast Asia and Indochina Affairs)
• Bureau III (West Asia and North African Affairs)

46 See, for example, Editing Group, Xingshuai zhilu: Waiguo butong leixing zhengdang jian-
she de jiangyan yu jiaoxun (The Road of Rise and Decline: Lessons and Experiences in the
Building of Different Types of Foreign Political Parties) (Beijing: Dangdai shijie chuban-
she, 2002).
47 Ding Hongju, Fengbei yu jingshi: 20 shiji de shehuizhuyi (A Monument of Vigilance: 20th
Century Socialism) (Beijing: Dangdai shijie chubanshe, 2002); Editing Group, Zhongguo
gongchandang duiwai gongzuo gaikuang (Survey of the Chinese Communist Party’s
External Work) (Beijing: Dangdai shijie chubanshe, 1992–2004 annual editions).

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 Figure 1. The International Department
(Table of Organisation)

Director

Vice-Directors

General
Office
China ’ s “ Quiet Diplomacy ”

Information Party Research Personnel Protocol

Centre Committee Office Bureau Bureau

Bureau i Bureau ii Bureau iii Bureau iv Bureau v Bureau vi Bureau vii Bureau viii
(South and (Northeast Asia (West Asia and (Africa) (Latin (Central Europe (North America, (West Europe)
Southeast Asia) and Indochina) North Africa) America) and Central Asia) Oceania, Scandinavia)

Chinese Association
Contemporary
for International
World Press
Understanding
Figure 1 The International Department.
353

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354 Shambaugh

• Bureau IV (African Affairs)

• Bureau V (Latin American Affairs)
• Bureau VI (East/Central Europe and Central Asian Affairs)
• Bureau VII (North America, Oceania and Scandinavian Affairs)
• Bureau VIII (Western European Affairs)

These bureaus rotate their personnel through appropriate embassies abroad.

Not every Chinese embassy overseas includes ID personnel, but approxi-
mately 30 do.48 This includes Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris, Brussels,
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Rome and a variety of countries in Asia,
Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The ID attachés abroad do not
openly identify themselves as such, usually identifying themselves simply
as Foreign Ministry personnel. Indeed, part of their duties involve normal
embassy functions and reporting. It is also assumed (but hard evidence is
lacking to substantiate) that ID attachés work closely with Ministry of State
Security (undercover) personnel abroad for the purposes of intelligence col-
lection and agent recruitment.

The Activities of the CCP/ID

The ID performs a wide variety of functions as noted above. Of these, clearly

its principal mandate is to maintain and build links with foreign political par-
ties. While the ID originally dealt only with communist, socialist, workers’,
leftist and other “fraternal” parties, this self-imposed restriction has long since
been abandoned (in the 1980s). Today, the CCP (through the ID) maintains
ties with “400-odd political parties and organisations in over 140 countries”.49
These include communist, worker, socialist, social democratic, labour, liberal,
Christian democratic and conservative parties.50 The sheer volume of party-
to-party exchanges is large: from 1983–2003 the ID claims to have received
4,500 delegations from foreign political parties, totalling 26,000 people, and
sent abroad 1,500 delegations involving 10,000 people.51 The ID receives around
200 delegations and sends abroad about 100 per year—boasting that, “On aver-

48 Ibid.
49 “External Relations of the Communist Party of China” (25 Sept. 2003), mimeo. The infor-
mation in this document was also published on Zhongguo wang (internet edition), 25
Sept. 2003, in FBIS, ibid., CPP20030926000053.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.

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age, we bring a foreign group to China every day and send a delegation out
every other day.”52 In 2004 for example (the last year for which detailed data is
available), the ID exchanged the following number of delegations with these
selected countries:53

• Asia: 1–3 per country except for North Korea (10); South Korea (7); Laos (9);
Malaysia (4); Mongolia (5); Singapore (4); Japan (13); Thailand (4); India (6);
Vietnam (10).
• Africa: 2–3 per country, except for Angola (6) and South Africa (4).
• Europe: 1–3 per country except for Poland (5); Germany (12); Russia (6);
France (8); Romania (4); Malta (4); Spain (4).
• Americas: 1–2 per country except for Argentina (3); Brazil (3); Cuba (4);
Chile (4).
• Oceania: Australia (5); New Zealand (4); Micronesian islands (6).

Although, by the end of 2001 the CCP/ID maintained formal ties with 418 politi-
cal parties in 147 nations, there is one notable exception to this rule: the US.54
This is not for wont of trying. Efforts by the ID to establish formal and infor-
mal links with the Republican and Democratic National Committees, and the
affiliated International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic
Institute (NDI), date to the late 1980s. In early 1989 the ID approached
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Lee Atwater and apparently
achieved agreement (according to the ID) on establishing a formal CCP-GOP
relationship—but the initiative was scuttled by a combination of the June 4
Incident and Atwater’s declining health and subsequent death.55 Various
approaches to the RNC and DNC were subsequently made through the US
Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Embassy in Washington, but to no avail.
Establishing such ties is a very high priority for the ID, and they are constantly
pressing and probing for openings to establish such ties. This even figured
in the 2005 US-China “Senior Dialogue” discussions between Vice Foreign

52 Ibid.
53 Editorial Board, Zhongguo gongchandang duiwai gongzuo gaikaung 2004 (Survey of CCP
External Work, 2004) (Beijing: Dangdai shijie chubanshe, 2005). This volume (series) lists
every delegation, their members, mission, interlocutors, itinerary and working agenda,
agreements signed and their general conclusions.
54 Figure given in Dai Bingguo, “Entering a New Phase in Party Diplomacy with Chinese
Characteristics that Reflects the Tenor of the Times”, Qiushi (8 Oct. 2002) on the
International Department of Central Committee of CPC website at <http://www.idcpc
.org.cn/english/article/20021008.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].
55 Information courtesy of former US Foreign Service Officer.

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Minister Dai Bingguo and then Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.56 As
the former ID Director, Dai has a particular interest in pursuing the subject and
establishing formal links with the two principal US parties.
Although the ID has been frustrated in establishing formal ties with the two
US political parties, links have been developed with the IRI and NDI—both of
which were permitted to establish training programmes in China in the areas
of rule of law, local election monitoring and civil society. The NDI also arranged
for a small delegation of ID personnel to attend the 2004 Democratic National
Convention in Boston, apparently the first time that such a courtesy had been
extended to the CCP. This caused some conflicts, as the NDI also hosted delega-
tions from Taiwan political parties—but, in the end, the ID decided that it was
more important to have a foot in the door and attend the convention than to
uphold its usual position of not participating in any activities where Taiwan
officials or political personages were present.
The ID engages in a number of different varieties of exchanges. Seven dis-
tinct types can be distinguished. The first is sending Party leaders abroad. These
trips are undertaken under Party auspices, although in the case of the CCP
General Secretary, who doubles as State President, they are joint Party-state
visits. In 2005 these included Hu Jintao’s visits to North Korea and Vietnam,
while Politburo members Wu Guanzheng visited Europe, Li Changchun visited
Africa, Luo Gan visited Latin America and all Central Committee department
heads led delegations abroad.57 Travel abroad for all Politburo and Central
Committee members who do not hold a government position is arranged
through ID channels. The ID also sends abroad provincial and municipal Party
secretaries.
A second category is hosting foreign party leaders, usually from social-
ist countries. All four of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s secretive visits to
China during 2000–6 have come under ID auspices. Kim has been shown an
array of sites aimed to impress him about the key components of China’s eco-
nomic reforms: China’s “Silicon Valley” in Zhongguancun, Beijing agricultural
research institutes, the Shanghai skyline, Three Gorges Dam, bustling seaport
of Yantian in Guangdong Province, five-star White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou
and the export-processing Zhuhai and Shenzhen Special Economic Zones.58

56 Author’s discussion with Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, 4 Nov. 2005, Beijing.
57 “IDCPC Minister on CPC International Work in 2005”, Renmin ribao, 28 Dec. 2005, in FBIS,
ibid., CPP20051228501009.
58 Philip Pan, “In China, Kim Vows Commitment to Talks”, Washington Post, 19 Jan. 2006;
Joseph Kahn, “The Secret’s Out: North Korea’s Leader Did Visit China”, New York Times, 19
Jan. 2006.

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Kim’s January 2006 visit, which took him for the first time to the booming
southern province of Guangdong, clearly had an impact on Kim. “The progress
made in the southern part of China, which has undergone a rapid change, and
the stirring reality of China deeply impressed us,” Kim said in a banquet toast
to Chinese President and CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao at the end of his
visit.59 The ID has also hosted a series of delegations of North Korean bureau-
crats, managers, economists and officials to China to receive briefings and view
the economic reforms first-hand. This kind of “economic reform diplomacy” is
an important part of China’s broader strategy for North Korea.
More broadly, the ID is responsible for maintaining ties with the four
remaining ruling communist parties in the world: North Korea, Vietnam, Laos
and Cuba. A number of delegations are dispatched to/from these countries
every year.60 For example, in 2004, the ID exchanged ten delegations each with
North Korea and Vietnam, nine with Laos and four with Cuba.61
Cuba has been of growing interest in recent years. One ID assessment effu-
sively praised the Cuban Communist Party’s accomplishments, including:
combining indigenous ideology (Marti Thought) with Marxism-Leninism;
refusing to adopt a Western multi-party system; rejecting the Soviet model as
incompatible; stressing social stability above all; organising special study ses-
sions for Party members; using the mass media to mobilise patriotism; creat-
ing Party organisational linkages to urban neighbourhoods and rural villages;
establishing a system whereby Party officials must meet with and “report back”
(hui bao) to citizens and conduct opinion polls among the population; allowing
two or more candidates to stand for local Party elections; not permitting spe-
cial privileges among officials and senior Party members; maintaining a “zero
tolerance” policy towards corrupt officials; promoting Party members based on
merit and careful vetting; and streamlining central and provincial level govern-
ment to promote efficiency.62 Clearly, the “Cuban model” contains elements
of growing interest to the CCP. CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao reportedly
heaped praise on the Cuban Communist Party at the Fourth Plenum of the
16th Party Congress in 2004 which discussed the lessons of other ruling parties
for the CCP.63

59 Quotation from North Korean News Agency, as reported in Kahn, ibid.

60 This is evident in the annual compendia of ID activities, Zhongguo gongchandang duiwai
gongzuo gaikuang, op cit.
61 Ibid.
62 Editing Group, The Road of Rise and Decline, op cit., pp. 60–70.
63 Willy Wo-Lap Lam, “Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao Draw Inspiration from Castro”, Pingguo
shibao (Hong Kong), 24 Oct. 2005, in FBIS-CHI, ibid.

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A third category of ID activity is to participate in the international confer-

ence circuit of political parties (either as full participant or observer). Examples
include the Socialist International, Christian Democrats International, St. Paul
Forum and the International Conference of Asian Political Parties.64 The ID,
in fact, hosted the Third International Conference of Asian Political Parties in
Beijing in September 2004. The meeting brought together 350 delegates from
81 political parties in 35 Asian countries, including 8 heads of state.65 On the
last day of the conference, the convocation agreed on a twelve-point “Beijing
Declaration” of principles and areas of cooperation.66
A fourth category of ID work is to publicise China’s policies and achieve-
ments overseas. This is done in a variety of forums. One recent example was
ID Vice-Minister Zhang Zhijun’s speech at the aforementioned 2006 Munich
Conference on Security Policy (it is curious that China chose not to send
Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan or another high-ranking PLA represen-
tative). This work parallels and supplements that undertaken by the State
Council Information Office and External Propaganda Leading Group (the
same organisation).67
A fifth category relates to China’s ongoing battle with Taiwan in the diplo-
matic arena. ID activities in this area are concentrated in the Caribbean and
Central America, as well as West Africa. Of the 14 countries in Latin America
with which the PRC does not have diplomatic relations, the ID claims to have
developed Party relations in 11 of them.68 The ILD played a key role in getting
heads of state from five of these countries to attend the October 2006 China-
Africa Summit in Beijing (despite the absence of diplomatic relations).
A sixth category of exchanges are geared towards advancing China’s eco-
nomic modernisation. For example, former ID Director Dai Bingguo claimed
in 2002 that:

64 Dai Bingguo, “Entering a New Phase in Party Diplomacy”, op cit.

65 See “Third Asian Political Parties’ Conference Starts in Beijing”, People’s Daily Online,
3 Sept. 2004 at <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200409/03/eng20040903_155808
.html> [28 Nov. 2006].
66 See “Beijing Declaration, 2004”, Xinhua Online, 5 Sept. 2004 at <http://news3.xinhuanet
.com/english/2004–09/05/content_1946372.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].
67 For further discussion of external propaganda efforts, see David Shambaugh, “China’s
Propaganda System: Institutions, Process and Efficacy”, The China Journal, no. 57
(Jan. 2007).
68 “Impressive Achievements in Pragmatic and Innovative Foreign Contacts of the
Communist Party of China” on the International Department of Central Committee of
CPC website at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/article/20021028.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].

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China ’ s “ Quiet Diplomacy ” 359

In recent years, we have used Party channels to recommend partners to

economic departments and provide them with information, thus facili-
tating a number of business cooperative projects. Coordinated with the
development of the western region [of China], we have guided foreign
investment into this region by attracting funds and projects from both
institutions and individuals. In addition, we have arranged inspection
tours of this region for hundreds of delegations from foreign political par-
ties and organisations. At the same time, we have arranged study visits to
foreign countries by more than 30 CCP delegations headed by leaders of
Party committees in a dozen western provinces and regions.69

A final category of exchanges involves inspection visits abroad (duiwai kaocha

dui) to study specific subjects. As CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao has stated,
“Fresh experiences during the Party building process should be carefully sum-
marised and helpful practices of foreign political parties should be studied and
borrowed to enrich the CCP’s governance.”70
These subjects run the gamut of topics. In Western Europe, for example,
such delegations have been organised to study higher education, social science
research, pension systems, stock markets, state-owned and privatised trans-
portation, health care and other features associated with the European “social
democratic (welfare) state”. In other areas, the ID claims to have dispatched
“more than ten special research teams abroad (during 2001] to investigate
such issues as party building, clean government and the relationship between
markets and society”.71 Another high-priority example involved studying the
reasons for the collapse of the Soviet and East European communist party-
states. In 2001 CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin instructed the ID to send a
delegation to Russia to discuss the causes and consequences of the collapse of
the USSR and CPSU.72 After its trip, the ID investigation team summarised five
lessons to be learned by the CCP:

69 Dai Bingguo, “Entering a New Phase in Party Diplomacy”, op cit.

70 Hu Jintao, “Helpful Practices of Foreign Political Parties Should be Studied, Borrowed”,
Xinhua, 30 Dec. 2005, in FBIS, ibid., CPP20051230424003.
71 Sun Dongmin and Xu Baokang, “Advancing with the Times Creatively and Innovatively:
Dai Bingguo Discusses the CCP’s International Work”, Renmin ribao, 18 Dec. 2001 on the
International Department of Central Committee of CPC website at <http://www.idcpc
.org.cn/english/article/20011218.htm> [28 Nov. 2006].
72 Dai Bingguo, “Exploiting the Advantages of Party Diplomacy . . .,” op cit.

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360 Shambaugh

1. Mistakes are inevitable in building socialism, but they should be admit-

ted rather than ignored and negated.
2. Firmly adhere to Communist Party leadership, but continuously seek to
improve the Party leadership’s capabilities—through organisational
Party building, strengthening propaganda and thought work among cad-
res, implementing democratic centralism and a system of inner-Party
supervision, improving the quality of cadres, etc.
3. Take economic development as the core, seek to improve productivity
and the standard of living before embarking on political reform (this was
Gorbachev’s greatest mistake).
4. Emphasise the unity of different ethnic groups and fight separatism.
5. Beware of the West’s “westernisation” and “division” strategies (Xi-Hua,
Fen-Hua zhanlue) and be highly alert to the West’s “peaceful evolution”
strategy.73

While not earth-shattering in their insights, the ID’s investigation joined a

number of others undertaken by other CCP organs.74 The ID also cooperated
in a joint “Sino-American Conference on the Causes of Collapse of the Soviet
Union”, in 2004. The conference brought together leading Soviet Watchers from
the US and China. Through such inquiries and exchanges, the ID has claimed
that, “We acquired a thorough understanding of the deep-seated reasons why
the communist parties in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries
lost their political power after several decades of governance, and why some
old parties long in power in other countries were successively forced out of
office, and the lessons to be drawn from their experiences. This deepened our
understanding of how political systems in other countries change and how
foreign political parties rise and fall.”75

73 Zhong lian bu ketizu (International Department’s Specialised Topics Research Group],

“Su-Gong kuatai he Sulian jieti jie zhizheng Gongchandang ren de jingshi” (The CPSU’s
Fall from Power, Collapse of the Soviet Union, and Ruling Communist Party Member’s
Vigilance], Dangjian yanjiu neican, no. 4 (2001): 13–5.
74 See David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (Washington
DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and University of California Press, forthcoming 2007),
Chapter 3.
75 Dai Bingguo, “New Characteristics of the Communist Party of China’s International Work
Since the Fifteenth National Congress”, Renmin ribao, 11 Oct. 2002 on the International
Department of Central Committee of CPC website at <http://www.idcpc.org.cn/english/
article/20021011.htm> [28 Nov.2006].

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China ’ s “ Quiet Diplomacy ” 361

Conclusion and Outlook

This study has explored the roles, history, organisation and activities of the ID
of the CCP. We have seen that the CCP/ID has played an important role in Party
affairs and the foreign affairs of the PRC for more than eight decades. Although
it naturally focused on managing relations with other communist parties for
much of this time, during the 1980s (before the collapse of communist parties
elsewhere) the ID began to diversify its partnerships.
This diversification was a by-product of China’s broadened diplomatic rela-
tionships after the 1970s, but it was also mandated by a desire to use the ID as
a conduit to enter into exchanges with and study foreign political parties and
foreign social and economic practices. It is difficult to measure with much pre-
cision just how much has been learned from these exchanges that have ben-
efited China’s domestic reforms, but each delegation sent abroad is required to
write up its principal observations for circulation to other Central Committee
departments and state organs.76 To be sure, such ID exchanges have provided
an important prism through which the CCP and other organisations in China
monitor the outside world and absorb lessons for China’s own modernisation.
This kind of information gathering goes well beyond traditional intelligence
collection (although, to be sure, the ID also engages in this activity).
One key dimension of this function has been to expose CCP leaders at the
provincial and sub-provincial levels to the outside world—often for the first
time. Many provincial Party secretaries, governors, mayors and other leading
local cadres are taken abroad on ID delegations every year. A related role that
it has, but shares with the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA),
is to invite noteworthy ex-politicians to China. While CPIFA tends to invite for-
mer heads of state and ministerial-level officials, the ID concentrates on those
who are important within their political parties. During 2005, for example, for-
mer Republican Party stalwarts Tom Ridge and Newt Gingrich were hosted by
the ID. This is another example of how the ID tries to “talent spot” and cater
to current or ex-party officials who may one day assume (or reassume) official
office. On occasion, it has also facilitated research in China by foreign China
specialists. Another supplementary role played by the ID has been to assist
in the external propaganda work (duiwai xuanchuan gongzuo) of the CCP, by
“telling China’s story” abroad to various foreign audiences.77

76 Interview with ID official, 3 Nov. 2005.

77 For further information on China’s external and internal propaganda systems, see David
Shambaugh, “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy”, op cit.

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362 Shambaugh

Given the vast range of inter-party relationships that the ID now engages in
(400+ in 140+ nations), the CCP/ID must be considered as an important com-
ponent of China’s foreign relations work. While its work decreased for awhile
following the Sino-Soviet Split, and again immediately after the collapse of
the former Soviet bloc, the ID has reinvented itself in the post-Cold War era
and now operates globally as never before. Given its exchanges with so many
democratic parties abroad, it could even become a conduit for fashioning
transformation of the CCP from a Leninist Party into some new kind of proto-
democratic hybrid.78 At a minimum, analysts of China’s diplomacy and foreign
affairs would be well advised to keep their eye on the CCP’s ID. Its diplomacy
may be quiet, but it is effective.

78 
See David Shambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, op cit.,
Chapters 4–5.

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