Veteran diplomat posted as vice-foreign minister

Xie Feng, a veteran diplomat familiar with United States affairs and a public diplomacy expert, assumed his new post as a vice-foreign minister, according to the Foreign Ministry's website.

His current areas of responsibility are "policy planning, North America and Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, translation and interpretation", the website said. His predecessor is Zheng Zeguang.

Born in Jiangdu, Jiangsu province in 1964, Xie has a master's degree in public administration.

His diplomatic career started in 1986 as a staff member with the ministry's Department of West European Affairs.

He first worked for the ministry's Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs－the agency that takes charge of affairs in the region－from 1993 to 2000.

In 2003-2008, he took the post of the department's deputy chief, and he led it as director-general in 2010-2014.

While in Washington, he first worked at the Chinese embassy in 2000-2003 as a counselor. During this period, he also showed up in the capacity of the embassy's spokesman.

In 2008-2010, he returned to Washington and served as the embassy's minister, and he took part in public events such as delivering a speech on China-US relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Xie's first mission as an ambassador started in 2014 as he headed the Chinese embassy in Indonesia.

He recently finished his mission as the commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region starting from 2017.

In another development, Xu Feihong, a veteran diplomat familiar with European affairs and former deputy chief of the ministry's Department of European Affairs, has taken the post of assistant minister.

He now takes charge of the ministry's administrative and financial affairs, according to the website.