On the Reflexive Formation of the “Human Capital” of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee

Received 03.07.2020. This article represents a stage in a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of foreign policy institutions and personalities of the People’s Republic of China since the late 1990s. to November 2019. During this period there was a rapid growth in the economic, technological and cultural development of the country, which both allowed and demanded a greater foreign policy activity of China, which until then was focused on internal, maximum, regional problems. At the same time, people and institutions, that shaped and implemented this new foreign policy also developed and changed. The periods between the congresses of the Chinese Communist Party with the corresponding renewal of political leadership and foreign policy priorities correlate with the prevalence of human resources with certain biographical criteria (place of birth, higher education and practical work) in the Foreign Ministry and the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, those who were born in the East of the country, studied and worked in Europe, and not in the United States and Russia, as one might suppose on the basis of the discourse, for many decades concentrated on the military confrontation between the main nuclear powers. This article examines the biographies of key employees of the CPC International department in connection with the formation of foreign policy in the context of the overall development of China. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded, firstly, about the strengthening of the technocratic approach to foreign policy specialists, which takes into account, first of all, their expert qualities, even in such a party structure as the CPC Central Committee International department, instead of the ideological approach that dominated in the past. Secondly, personnel dynamics are influenced by the specifics of the work of the International Department, which is currently aimed at maximizing the implementation of opportunities for cooperation, primarily of an economic nature, in the Eurasian direction, while the Foreign Ministry has the main current task of confronting the United States and regional rivals. Third, the revealed correlation and long-term effects of such a personnel policy can also stimulate Russian activity in terms of training the next generations of foreign policy human resources on the Chinese direction.