Firstly, you comprised quite an impressive list of interviewees, numbering at over 80. Was it hard to reach and then get these interviewees to agree to be interviewed? Even under conditions of anonymity? Was there different levels of difficulty between reaching and confirming meetings with non-Chinese vs Chinese interviewees?

I wouldn't say it is impressive because I was simply following a pretty established tradition of studies and books that have used similar interviewing methods or ethnography to examine various aspects of China. That being said, it wasn't particularly easy, even under the conditions of anonymity. It was far easier to get access to non-Chinese interviewees than Chinese interviewees. I interviewed many more non-Chinese diplomats than Chinese diplomats. The majority of interviewees were non-Chinese interlocutors in Beijing, Shanghai, or Singapore. They were far more willing and open to talk about Chinese diplomacy, in order to help me better understand Chinese diplomatic practices. I did get access to Chinese diplomats and interviewees, but these took place as a result of a preexisting relationship or through mutual connections. If I was just starting out as a scholar with zero existing networks in China, it would have been much harder. Some of these relationships take months or years to build. A couple of interviewees didn’t grant me facetime until the third year of my field research. I also think that my Chinese ethnicity and Singaporean nationality helped me to get interviews. It would probably be a bit harder for an American or British scholar to get the same access because of the overall political relationship. I will add that it is getting harder now to do ethnographically-sensitive or interview intensive work today, because the political atmosphere has tightened up considerably. I would imagine the stuff that I did when I was writing this book and doing the kind of research I did back then would probably not be feasible in China today.

Practice Theory is also a fascinating and very relevant method of research and theorizing to my understanding. I was curious if you received any pushback from fellow academics when you were writing this book because of the focus you had on interviewees, social media documentation, and the understanding of trends?

The focus on interviewing had no issue because this is fairly accepted methodological practice. But in terms of overall pushback, because of my theoretical framework, it is seen as non-mainstream. People easily grasp realism when understanding various aspects of China's international behavior, because there's such a large volume of scholarship behind it. I had to remove an entire chapter from this book, because it was deemed too theoretical and not appealing enough to mainstream traditional IR folks, especially the North American market. Despite this, practice theory and the tools of Bourdieu’s sociology still appear in established American press in this book. To me, that is progress in decentering mainstream theoretical tools that have traditionally been used to study China. I still get question marks, especially amongst hardcore security folks. But even then, most people are open to hearing what I have to say or what Bourdieu or practice theory has to say about China. When I simplify and explain this reasoning, most people are intrigued, rather than dismissive of this approach, because it opens up new avenues for different understandings of Chinese diplomacy. 

In chapter two, diplomacy’s ascendancy, you talk extensively about the assertive, somewhat off-putting language usage and actions of MOFA officials, citing the examples of Wang Yi’s visit to Canada, the continual suppression of a unified SCS statement by ASEAN, and the seizure of Singaporean military vehicles after an exercise in Taiwan. Does the aggressive diplomatic stances that MOFA continues to take remain in line with historical Chinese political and cultural trends? Or could it resort to more respectful, congenial relations?

 If you track the historical evolution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China, there are periods when its influence ebbed and flowed. There are periods where its diplomacy was more aggressive and assertive, and then there are periods where it's more tame as well. I wouldn't say that it adheres or conforms to an unchanging historical guide. But there are periods of time that allow diplomatic norms, behaviors, practices and standards to be established. These established practices, in turn, tend to be durable. That's why we see in recent PRC history; diplomacy has taken on a more assertive shape. That said, the future is always open. It's not like there's only one way of doing diplomacy that the Chinese know. They can be respectful and seek to have congenial relations as they are still doing now. In my book, I'm not saying that they are incapable of cooperative action. I say that they are both assertive and cooperative. I will add that Chinese diplomatic assertiveness is in line with the current general political trend and atmosphere of which they're embedded in. In the last year or so, I've observed less wolf-warrior-like diplomacy. I wouldn't say that assertive diplomacy has gone away. They haven't abandoned this but rather have tweaked and softened it with good reason because in some instances, they see the limits of wolf-warrior diplomacy. In some areas, they have received pushback with considerable reputational costs as well. As a result, they have tweaked it. I would classify these tweaks as tactical and minor, but overall, I do not think that the assertive diplomatic practices have changed. 

The idea of transversal disruption was easily one of my favorite subjects broached in this book. Will this strategy of transversal disruption lose its potency and effectiveness in the future? If delegates and diplomats come to expect these behaviors from China, would it then render that strategy useless and force China to reconsider its strategies?

I don’t think so. Because others expect and acquiesce to this strategy - this is proof that it is working. Of course, they're receiving pushback but these tend to come from the biggest players, such as the US and UK who are well prepared to have the media and government scrutiny over alleged bad practices or behavior from the Chinese. But these are a minority of cases. In the majority of cases, most countries accommodate. This is not to say they completely agree with China. But no one would want to risk offending China. That means you generally are accommodating of China's desires. Most of China's requests are also not completely coercive. They do genuinely go for mutual win sets when it is possible. They go for small gains too, and if most countries continually accommodate them, why would China reconsider? There are some reputational costs with the strategy I mentioned before. But as it stands, the amount of obedience they garner from others far outweighs some of the reputational costs they may incur. From the Chinese perspective, this has been a successful strategy.

When discussing the institutional habitus of the MOFA, I recall an interesting point on the amount of linguistics students rather than IR students within the MOFA, which gives a different set of skill sets and ultimately make them better candidates to uphold MOFA’s habitus by sticking to diplomacy by the book. What are some drawbacks that may arise from the unique reliance on the obedience of linguistics and other non-IR focused, Chinese educated students?

One of the most obvious drawbacks is that you have a large group of people who are too alike and their backgrounds too similar. Their worldviews and skill sets are quite uniform, which can lead to group thinking. Of course there are some benefits to that as well. The likeness of a majority of your institutional inhabitants means that it is easier to discipline and get them to imbibe the cultural codes and norms. I do think they have made moves to diversify from this. They are hiring more non-linguistically trained students. I do think proper education in international relations is increasing in its value. There are a good number of diplomats who were trained in linguistics, who went on to achieve great things from the Chinese context. On the job training and learning as you move through the ranks is equally important. But what distinguishes the Chinese diplomats from others is, rather than a majority of its diplomats coming from your political science or social sciences, they come from linguistics. I think that there is space to study how the prominence of linguistically educated professionals affect Chinese diplomats or diplomacy. It would be fascinating to track the careers and trajectory and compare them to those coming from non-linguistic backgrounds. My hunch is because a majority of the diplomats are from linguistic backgrounds, they tend to do very well simply because there are more of them to promote and move up the ranks and due to their language training, they work as interpreters for political leaders. I don't think they will completely change this practice, but they do understand that they need to retain talent and to also diversify and professionalize the diplomatic corps. 

Do you think that there's a new strength for the linguistics students in knowing how to conduct themselves on social media? Since having a background in linguistics means students have a deeper understanding of language, would it be easier to direct a certain narrative because these linguistics students inherently understand the effects of language, tone, and context?

I wouldn't draw an association between linguistic training with performance on social media. Linguistics training and the particular language that you learn has a greater effect on where you're eventually posted. Obviously, if you studied English, you will go to the Anglophone world, if you're training in Russian, then it's likely that at some point of your career, you will be assigned to Russia. The practices on social media and Twitter in particular are quite pervasive. In some ways, it doesn't matter what your original background is, because it's generally and uniformly assertive. Diplomacy conducted on social media is quite pervasive across the institution. This performance on social media is also part of their overall appraisal as well, which is important because it then incentivizes these diplomats to conduct a particular brand of diplomacy.