View Vacancy - CPK - Political Officer, B3(L)
To provide, and enable, excellent reporting on China’s foreign policy for the UK’s China Network, stakeholders in London, and colleagues across the FCO’s global network. This will be supported by developing a network of contacts on their policy areas and helping colleagues develop their own. The jobholder will provide support for high impact visits by ministers and officials to China.
The Foreign and Security Policy Team sits within the Embassy’s Political Section. It is responsible for a wide range of work linked to understanding China’s foreign policy and increasing UK-China cooperation in these areas.
The successful candidate will undertake research and analysis that informs London and the FCO’s network of over 270 posts around the world. They will focus on specific aspects of China’s foreign and security policy, most notably Latin America, and add significantly to London’s understanding of Chinese positions – in turn helping the UK develop its own foreign policy. This will be achieved by using their excellent Chinese and English language skills to undertake open source research and analysis, media monitoring, contact building, and supporting related visits. There will be opportunities to meet with external stakeholders such as academics and foreign diplomats.
Part of the role includes managing the steady stream of visits to China by officials and ministers engaging on the Foreign and Security Policy Team’s remit. The successful candidate will use their judgement to ensure success, working with senior colleagues, the Visits Team, and others.
A key element of this position is enabling the wider team to deliver its objectives, whilst working closely with the A2 officer managed by the successful candidate. In practice this means providing advice to colleagues on the best way to engage with the Chinese government and academic institutions, supporting meetings by providing interpretation and translation, and working alongside the A2 officer to successfully set up calls. They will also monitor the press and specialist publications to review events and opinions and identify new contacts for team members to meet.
In addition to line management and providing support to the team the successful candidate will oversee the team’s contact management, provide cover for absent colleagues and handle resource management processes where necessary.
The China Network has a strong corporate culture that provides new and exciting opportunities – the incumbent has recently lead a campaign to improve the support given to mental health in the China Network and shared this best practice with other embassies.
- A university degree.
- Previous experience of writing detailed analytical reports in English.
- Strong IT and organisations skills, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook.
- Fluent in English and Mandarin.
- Knowledge of foreign policy issues and/or international economics at a high level.
- Experience of translation and/or interpreting.
We offer a competitive package, which includes basic salary, good leave entitlement, and insurance plan, etc. The gross salary (before all deductions) is CNY 17, 870/ month for Chinese Nationals and an abated monthly salary of CNY 24, 746/month for British Nationals and spouses/ partners (all nationalities) of diplomats who are ‘W’ (diplomatic) visa holders and meet passport criteria.
We also offer excellent development opportunities and a 22-day annual leave entitlement in pro rata.
Conditioned working hours is 35 hours/ week from Monday to Friday and flexible working can be arranged upon personal needs.
For more details on our Total Rewards Package, please visit our website http://www.gov.uk/government/world/china.
Staff recruited locally by the British Embassy Beijing is subject to Terms and Conditions of Service according to local Chinese employment law.
All applications must be received before 11:55PM (China Standard Time) on 27 August 2019.
Incomplete application forms will not be taken into consideration, so please ensure you provide the information requested. We regret to advise that we will only be contacting short-listed candidates. Applicants called for an interview will be assessed on the core competencies listed above.
To those applicants not short-listed, we extend our appreciation for considering the British Government as a potential employer.
This opportunity is closed to applications.