Qin Gang brought a tougher style to China's foreign ministry pulpit. Now he is Beijing's man in Washington, inheriting a hard post amid the most fraught relations in years between China and the U.S.

Transcript

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

China is preparing to send a new ambassador to the U.S. His name is Qin Gang, and he has a difficult job ahead because of tense U.S.-China relations. NPR's Emily Feng looked into what kind of diplomat he might be.

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Qin Gang is not known for being an expert on U.S. politics, but he is known for pioneering a more acerbic style of communication when he was a two-time spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

ED LANFRANCO: He was wholly contemptuous of the press corps, and he made no bones about it.

FENG: That's Ed Lanfranco. He reported from Beijing for UPI from 2001 to 2009.

LANFRANCO: In terms that Americans might understand, he exhibited all the competence of Sean Spicer and the charm of Sarah Huckabee Sanders in the White House when dealing with the press.

FENG: Here Qin is at a 2014 Beijing press conference with foreign journalists a few days after then-President Barack Obama gave a speech claiming the U.S. would be a world leader for the next century.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

QIN GANG: (Non-English language spoken).

FENG: Qin says, "Must be nice to be the big boss of the world." He goes on to say, "I can tell you, China was once big boss for more than a century." It was a willingness to skewer the U.S. with colorful punchlines like these that made Qin one of the first foreign ministry celebrities. He typified a more confident, confrontational China.

JAMES GREEN: In some ways, this was at a time after the global financial crisis when China was stepping out on the world stage.

FENG: That's James Green, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on China issues for two decades.

GREEN: He was the face in some ways of new China trying to pick up the pieces after, in the Chinese view, the U.S. destroyed the global financial system and China was stepping in to save it.

FENG: Green points out that since being spokesperson, Qin Gang has been steeped in protocol, the rules of diplomacy, such as arranging high-level state visits for Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

GREEN: He got to know the leadership and then was trusted in a way that most senior officials don't have access to.

FENG: So Qin's appointment means not only does he likely have the ear of China's top leadership, but his more brash presentation also has their endorsement. Peter Martin is a former China correspondent who has written a book on Chinese diplomacy called "China's Civilian Army." He says Qin will need to balance demands from his domestic and American audiences.

PETER MARTIN: One is the need to project strength and confidence and the sense that China has kind of arrived at this new place in the world. The other is the need to manage sensitivities with a bilateral partner.

FENG: In his book, Martin covers the rise of wolf-warrior diplomacy, an unapologetically nationalistic and abrasive style of foreign policy some younger Chinese diplomats now favor. Qin might be outspoken, but Martin says he is not a wolf warrior. He's a seasoned, smooth operator, something much needed in the U.S.

MARTIN: Someone who is outright wolf warrior-ish - you know, we demand this; you must do that - just isn't going to fly with the world's most powerful country.

FENG: Qin's job will be a tough one no matter what, though. Tariffs on Chinese goods and sanctions on Chinese officials remain from the last U.S. administration. Republican politicians with presidential ambitions are calling for a boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics. And the Biden administration continues to insist that there's only one leader in the world - America. A sharp-tongued Chinese ambassador with a flair for the theatrical could make relations even more colorful.

Emily Feng, NPR News, Beijing.

(SOUNDBITE OF GOLD PANDA'S "MARRIAGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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