Wang Yi serves as head of China’s central foreign affairs commission and as foreign minister. He’s Beijing’s foreign policy supremo after President Xi Jinping.

But Wang has a problem. While he’s very good at showing loyalty to Xi and conformity to the president’s wishes, Wang is not very good at building relationships or pursuing pragmatic discussions with foreign partners. He is known as unusually prickly, even for a Chinese Communist apparatchik, and for welding himself to his talking points. This makes it challenging for Wang to accomplish his key mission with regards to the West. Namely, securing greater Western latitude for China’s trade policy, high-technology import efforts and military expansionism in the East China and South China Seas.