Death of a dove reignites China foreign policy debate
Wu Jianmin tackled hawkish PLA general and nationalistic newspaper editor
On Friday morning, family members, friends, foreign affairs officials and former ambassadors paid their last respects to late Chinese diplomat Wu Jianmin, who died in a traffic accident last weekend.
Visitors at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing were each given a white flower and a brochure detailing the retired diplomat’s life.
Wu, 77, died in a car crash before dawn last Saturday in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province.
His view ... about peace and development was right and wise. Such views are not in short supply, but his courage was
Diplomats and generals in the West are commonly identified as doves or hawks, hardliners or moderates, nationalists or globalists. But such terminology was unheard of in the ranks of Chinese officialdom until recently, with open debate about foreign policy rare under communist rule.
Wu triggered such debate among the country’s close-knit circle of diplomatic and foreign policy advisers. And his death has reignited it.
Wu began his diplomatic career in 1959 as a French interpreter for late party chairman Mao Zedong and late premier Zhou Enlai. He also served as China’s ambassador to France, the Netherlands and the UN in Geneva before heading the influential Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, the alma mater of numerous senior diplomats, including incumbent foreign minister Wang Yi.