China has replaced its top foreign ministry official amid a trend toward greater assertiveness in handling territorial disputes and participating in global organisations.Zhang Zhijun, the vice foreign minister, took over recently as the foreign ministry's Communist Party secretary, state media reports said on Wednesday, meaning he now outranks Yang Jiechi, the current foreign minister.
Yang was accused of being caught off guard when Hillary Clinton,
... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill...
the US secretary of state, announced at a security conference in Vietnam this year that Washington considered the peaceful resolution of South China Sea disputes as part of the American national interest.
Zhang, 57, had served almost his entire career in the party's International Liaison Department, a type of shadow foreign ministry focusing on contacts with foreign political parties, until he became deputy to Yang last year.
That party background may mean he has more of a say in policymaking than his predecessor, as China increasingly abandons its former low-key approach to dealing with the outside world.