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.