China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Fighting Political Warfare Against the West
BY FRANK FANG AND CATHY HE
April 27, 2021
News Analysis
From France to Venezuela to the United States, the Chinese communist regime’s diplomats have been busy this past year blustering, threatening, and denigrating their host countries as part of an all-out effort to advance Beijing’s agenda on the world stage.
This aggressive style, dubbed “wolf warrior” diplomacy, was on full display in March during the first face-to-face meeting between Biden administration officials and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) diplomats in Alaska. In a widely publicized blow-up, Chinese diplomats responded to U.S. criticism of the CCP’s aggressions domestically and abroad by launching into an extended tirade accusing the United States of similar infractions.
Yang Jiechi, the top CCP official in charge of foreign affairs, broke protocol by taking up more than 15 minutes for opening remarks (the agreed-upon time was two minutes), during which he lambasted the United States over what he described as its struggling democracy, poor human rights record, and unfair foreign and trade policies.
After both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded in defense of the United States, Yang retorted: “Well, it was my bad. When I entered this room, I should have reminded the U.S. side of paying attention to its tone in our respective opening remarks, but I didn’t.”
He then accused the U.S. side of speaking in a “condescending way,” and breaking diplomatic protocols. “So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang added.
Chinese state media made hay of the clash, spinning the event as a win for the Chinese diplomats, who exuded “confident body language” in contrast with the “closed off” gestures of their U.S. counterparts.
But the display was not only for domestic consumption. Emboldened by the regime’s purported success in weathering the pandemic compared to other nations, the CCP has recently been pushing the narrative of “the East is rising while the West is declining”—and its diplomats’ behavior is embodying that message on the international stage.
“The wolf warriors personify the desire to present the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as a powerful country that can set the rules for world order,” June Teufel Dreyer, professor of political science at the University of Miami told The Epoch Times in an email.
Dreyer described the confrontational approach as an intensification of a trend that could be observed as early as 2010, when Yang had a similar outburst at an ASEAN regional security meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. Fuming at 12 countries who raised their concerns over Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea, Yang fired back, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact,” while staring at the foreign minister of tiny Singapore.
Rise of the ‘Wolf Warrior’
The CCP’s wolf warrior diplomacy came into full force during the pandemic last year, as Beijing moved to aggressively fend off international criticism of its cover-up of the CCP virus outbreak. Since then, foreign criticism of the CCP’s actions, from its human rights abuses in Xinjiang to its military aggression in the South China Sea, has routinely drawn fiery responses from officials on Twitter and other forums.
The descriptor is named after two hit jingoistic Chinese movies of the “Wolf Warrior” franchise, released in 2015 and 2017. The movies centered around a Chinese special forces soldier fighting foreign mercenaries at China’s southern border and Africa.
Examples of the regime’s wolf warrior diplomacy abound.
In a now-infamous tweet, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian last March accused the U.S. Army of bringing the virus to Wuhan when participating in a military sports event in October 2019, prompting a firestorm of criticism from the United States and Western democracies. The baseless accusation marked the start of Beijing’s ongoing campaign to spread virus origin disinformation to deflect attention away from its mishandling of the outbreak and shun scrutiny on the possibility that it leaked from a Wuhan lab.
Also in March, the Chinese Embassy in Caracas slammed unnamed Venezuelan officials for calling the virus the “China” or “Wuhan” virus by telling them to “put on masks and shut up.”
Zhao struck again in November, drawing fury from Australia for tweeting a photoshopped image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of a young child. The image was a reference to a report that found some Australian special forces soldiers unlawfully killed civilians in Afghanistan during a mission there. The tweet came amid heightened tensions between the two countries after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus. Beijing responded with economic coercion—by slapping import restrictions on a range of Australian goods including beef, coal, barley, and wine.
The brawly style is a direction set straight from CCP leader Xi Jinping, Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk and founder of Corr Analytics, told The Epoch Times.
“[Xi] wants an aggressive diplomacy to try and scare the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and their allies into territorial and trade concessions,” Corr said in an email. “He believes that might makes right, and therefore a strong China should be duly accommodated.”
When countries push back against Beijing’s assertiveness, Xi doubles down by “direct[ing] his diplomats to increase the volume, intensity, and even anger of their diplomacy,” Corr said.(for the whole article visit the link below)
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china...litical-warfare-against-the-west_3793100.html
BY FRANK FANG AND CATHY HE
April 27, 2021
News Analysis
From France to Venezuela to the United States, the Chinese communist regime’s diplomats have been busy this past year blustering, threatening, and denigrating their host countries as part of an all-out effort to advance Beijing’s agenda on the world stage.
This aggressive style, dubbed “wolf warrior” diplomacy, was on full display in March during the first face-to-face meeting between Biden administration officials and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) diplomats in Alaska. In a widely publicized blow-up, Chinese diplomats responded to U.S. criticism of the CCP’s aggressions domestically and abroad by launching into an extended tirade accusing the United States of similar infractions.
Yang Jiechi, the top CCP official in charge of foreign affairs, broke protocol by taking up more than 15 minutes for opening remarks (the agreed-upon time was two minutes), during which he lambasted the United States over what he described as its struggling democracy, poor human rights record, and unfair foreign and trade policies.
After both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded in defense of the United States, Yang retorted: “Well, it was my bad. When I entered this room, I should have reminded the U.S. side of paying attention to its tone in our respective opening remarks, but I didn’t.”
He then accused the U.S. side of speaking in a “condescending way,” and breaking diplomatic protocols. “So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang added.
Chinese state media made hay of the clash, spinning the event as a win for the Chinese diplomats, who exuded “confident body language” in contrast with the “closed off” gestures of their U.S. counterparts.
But the display was not only for domestic consumption. Emboldened by the regime’s purported success in weathering the pandemic compared to other nations, the CCP has recently been pushing the narrative of “the East is rising while the West is declining”—and its diplomats’ behavior is embodying that message on the international stage.
“The wolf warriors personify the desire to present the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as a powerful country that can set the rules for world order,” June Teufel Dreyer, professor of political science at the University of Miami told The Epoch Times in an email.
Dreyer described the confrontational approach as an intensification of a trend that could be observed as early as 2010, when Yang had a similar outburst at an ASEAN regional security meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam. Fuming at 12 countries who raised their concerns over Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea, Yang fired back, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact,” while staring at the foreign minister of tiny Singapore.
Rise of the ‘Wolf Warrior’
The CCP’s wolf warrior diplomacy came into full force during the pandemic last year, as Beijing moved to aggressively fend off international criticism of its cover-up of the CCP virus outbreak. Since then, foreign criticism of the CCP’s actions, from its human rights abuses in Xinjiang to its military aggression in the South China Sea, has routinely drawn fiery responses from officials on Twitter and other forums.
The descriptor is named after two hit jingoistic Chinese movies of the “Wolf Warrior” franchise, released in 2015 and 2017. The movies centered around a Chinese special forces soldier fighting foreign mercenaries at China’s southern border and Africa.
Examples of the regime’s wolf warrior diplomacy abound.
In a now-infamous tweet, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian last March accused the U.S. Army of bringing the virus to Wuhan when participating in a military sports event in October 2019, prompting a firestorm of criticism from the United States and Western democracies. The baseless accusation marked the start of Beijing’s ongoing campaign to spread virus origin disinformation to deflect attention away from its mishandling of the outbreak and shun scrutiny on the possibility that it leaked from a Wuhan lab.
Also in March, the Chinese Embassy in Caracas slammed unnamed Venezuelan officials for calling the virus the “China” or “Wuhan” virus by telling them to “put on masks and shut up.”
Zhao struck again in November, drawing fury from Australia for tweeting a photoshopped image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of a young child. The image was a reference to a report that found some Australian special forces soldiers unlawfully killed civilians in Afghanistan during a mission there. The tweet came amid heightened tensions between the two countries after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus. Beijing responded with economic coercion—by slapping import restrictions on a range of Australian goods including beef, coal, barley, and wine.
The brawly style is a direction set straight from CCP leader Xi Jinping, Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk and founder of Corr Analytics, told The Epoch Times.
“[Xi] wants an aggressive diplomacy to try and scare the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, and their allies into territorial and trade concessions,” Corr said in an email. “He believes that might makes right, and therefore a strong China should be duly accommodated.”
When countries push back against Beijing’s assertiveness, Xi doubles down by “direct[ing] his diplomats to increase the volume, intensity, and even anger of their diplomacy,” Corr said.(for the whole article visit the link below)
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china...litical-warfare-against-the-west_3793100.html