Xi Jinping appoints his trusted aide Qin Gang as China's new foreign minister

Chinese President Xi Jinping's trusted aide Qin Gang has been appointed as the new foreign minister, reported state radio on Friday.56-year-old Qin, who is currently China's ambassador to the United States, will take the place of Wang Yi, who has been the country's foreign minister in the past decade.

Wang Yi, aged 69, got promoted in the Chinese Communist Party's politburo in October and will be playing a bigger role in the country's foreign policy.

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Qin, who has been a rising star in China's foreign ministry, has held various positions in the past which include the position of the spokesperson of the ministry and positions in the Chinese embassy in Britain.

He served as chief protocol officer Xi between 2014 and 2018.

After his appointment as the foreign minister, Qin will come back to Beijing from Washington after serving as China's 11th ambassador to the United States for 17 months.

This week, an essay was published in the National Interest, an American bi-monthly magazine, in which Qin talked about the position of China on foreign policy and said that the relations between the US and China were not a zero-sum game.

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Qin's appointment comes in the wake of countries imposing mandatory testing for people coming from China. Reacting to the imposition of test requirements in various countries, Chinese state media had earlier said that such steps were "discriminatory".

(With inputs from agencies)