Putin was clearly quite satisfied with Wang Ye's plans for conducting foreign affairs.
He said with a smile:
"It seems choosing you as chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee was the right decision.
Kolov held the position for several years, and his performance can only be described as utterly mediocre!
Young people like you are still better—more passionate about your work, broader in vision, and possessed of an international mindset.
In the future, our government should do its best to make officials younger, so the country can develop faster and better..."
After praising Wang Ye for a while, he shifted the subject and asked, "Foreign affairs are systematic work. The Duma alone definitely can't handle it. It would be best for the Duma, the government, and the Kremlin to form a permanent task force to systematically plan the country's foreign affairs. That way, our diplomatic work can remain consistent and unified, rather than having several different voices abroad like some European and American countries."
Naturally, Wang Ye understood what he meant.
Because of their power structures, some Western countries had their parliaments and governments doing their own separate things. Even in foreign relations, the government could hold one position while parliament held another.
To give a simple example, suppose the Kremlin and the government took a conciliatory and supportive attitude toward Ukraine, announcing all sorts of preferential policies for Ukraine.
But the Duma did not approve. Instead, it introduced various laws to restrict Ukraine and even vetoed the preferential policies offered by the government.
Wouldn't Ukraine be left completely confused? Was Russia actually being good to them or bad to them? Should they move closer to Russia next, or keep their distance...
That was the chaos caused by disunity in foreign affairs!
Putin's proposal was intended to prevent precisely