China overtakes US as no 1 in diplomatic posts

China has overtaken the US to ­establish the world’s largest diplomatic network.

China now has three more diplomatic postings than the US. Picture: Reuters

China has overtaken the US to ­establish the world’s largest diplomatic network, as Xi Jinping ­pushes to expand his country’s economic footprint through the Belt and Road Initiative.

New Lowy Institute analysis reveals China now has 276 diplomatic posts, surpassing the network of the US by three posts.

While Beijing and Washington have almost the same number of embassies, China is unmatched in the number of consulates, with 96 compared to 88 for the US.

As Donald Trump pursues his “America First” agenda, the institute’s Global Diplomacy Index finds US diplomacy “has entered a period of limbo”.

“With a hollowed-out State Department — only 73 per cent of key positions are filled — and ­attempts to cut the State Department’s budget by 23 per cent, American diplomacy is looking rudderless,” Lowy Institute ­research fellow Bonnie Bley said.

China rose from third place in the 2016 index, behind the US and France. Taiwan was the biggest loser in diplomatic representation, amid an aggressive push by China to win over its diplomatic allies.

Taiwan had 22 embassies in 2016, but now has just 15. Beijing opened five new embassies in countries formerly aligned to ­Taiwan — El Salvador, Burkina Faso, the Gambia, and Sao Tome and Principe and the Dominican Republic.

It will add two posts to that number in next year’s survey, after wooing the Pacific states of Solomon Islands and Kiribati away from Taipei with promises of millions of dollars in development assistance.

 

Australia came in at 27th position in the diplomatic ranking, and 18th among G20 nations ahead of Saudi Arabia. It opened two new posts — in Tuvalu and Morocco in the past two years — and has plans to establish a further five posts in the Pacific by 2021.

“Yet even with these positive announcements, Australia continues to run a diplomatic deficit,” Ms Bley said. “While many countries continue to grow their own networks, Australia is treading water.”

She said the results “ultimately speak to national ambitions”.

“China has really worked on expanding its consulates, which speaks more to depth than breadth,” Ms Bley said. “Consulates perform a different function — they tend to be more for economic co-operation rather than political relationships. That will go hand-in-hand with (China’s) economic interests, including the Belt and Road Initiative.”

In the Pacific, China has a diplomatic posts in Vanuatu and Tonga, where the US is not represented. Beijing also maintains posts in Iran, Syria and North Korea, which the US classifies as rogue states. The US has posts in a number of South and Central American countries where China is not represented, including Paraguay, ­Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. It also has representation in Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of China.

The Lowy analysis suggests Britain has been slow off the mark to initiate its “Global Britain” policy. Since 2016 it has closed or downgraded 11 consulates and offices. With a total of 247 posts in 2019, Japan moved into fourth place in 2019, overtaking Russia for the first time.