Pardee Center Hosts Virtual Book Talk for China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy

On November 2, 2021, the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future hosted a virtual book talk by Peter Martin, Defense Policy & Intelligence Reporter for Bloomberg News and author of the new book, China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy (Oxford University Press 2021).

In the book, Martin tells the story of China’s transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower from the perspective of its diplomats. In the early days of the People’s Republic, diplomats were highly disciplined, committed communists who feared revealing any weakness to the threatening capitalist world. Remarkably, the model that revolutionary leader Zhou Enlai established continues to this day despite the massive changes the country has undergone in recent decades. China’s Civilian Army charts the history of China’s diplomatic corps from its earliest days through to the present, drawing on the memoirs of more than a hundred retired diplomats and dozens of interviews.

The webinar included a discussion featuring Min Ye (Associate Professor of International Relations, Pardee School of Global Studies) and Joseph Fewsmith (Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Pardee School of Global Studies), and was moderated by Amb. Jorge Heine (Research Professor, Pardee School of Global Studies).

The event was hosted by the Rising Powers Initiative (RPI), a research program at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. The mission of RPI is to understand why rising powers flourish or fail in terms of security, governance, and health, and to understand the impact they have on the international orders of their time. RPI conducts interdisciplinary and policy-relevant research on five emerging powers with increasing global impact: China, India, Brazil, the European Union/Germany, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Learn more about RPI at www.bu.edu/pardee/rpi.