Zhao Lijian, who has been described as a spokesman for Wolf, is notoriously rude, but the degree of violence and brutality with which he insulted the “Five Eyes Alliance” with the phrase “beware of being poked in the eye” still startled readers Thursday.
In the wake of Beijing’s recent disqualification of four members of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislature, the “Five Eyes Alliance,” composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, issued a joint statement late Wednesday night through their foreign ministers, demanding that China withdraw the NPC’s authorization for the Hong Kong SAR to disqualify the four legislators and reinstate them immediately. The Five Eyes questioned Beijing’s move as a premeditated attempt to silence opposition.
No one expected Beijing to accept the Five Eyes’ demands, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian still surprised the world with a violent statement Thursday. Asked by reporters about the five foreign ministers’ statement, Zhao Lijian retorted, “You’re talking about the five eyes, aren’t you? He then parroted a recent quote from Xi Jinping: “Chinese people never cause trouble, and never fear trouble. Then he said, “No matter if they have five eyes or ten, if they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, beware of their eyes being poked out and blinded.”
Zhao Lijian’s violent threats have caused much discussion, with some calling Zhao Lijian a “punk spokesman” and others saying, “This is the level of culture in a cave.” A netizen tweeted, “Even if we don’t talk about positions, this barbaric and cruel expression of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to ‘poke the blind eye out’ came out of the mouth of a national spokesperson. One can imagine the distance between the CCP’s political civilization and the world.” Cai Xia, a former professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), commented: “The CPC has always worshipped violent revolution, and they have a taste for bloody violence. Zhao Lijian’s words intuitively show the essential difference between humanity and bestiality, barbarism and civilization.
Wang Dan, a student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement who lives in the United States, believes that the use of such vulgar and vulgar diplomatic language by the Chinese Foreign Ministry is to cater to the reading habits of patriotic cynics and the grassroots in China. He believes that the current actions of the Chinese Foreign Ministry show that their statements are addressed to the Chinese people and are aimed at arousing nationalist sentiments in the country.
Su Xiaokang, a famous writer, believes that the vulgarization of the CCP’s diplomatic language is a reaction to the vulgarization of the mainland’s discourse at the national level over the past three decades, which has led to the downgrading of its diplomatic etiquette. They are already “civilized” if they haven’t used national curses in their diplomatic rhetoric.
The most recent example was directed at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who told the Associated Press on November 12 that “Taiwan has never been a part of China, and that’s been a policy of the Reagan administration. Admittedly, these policies have been followed by the U.S. for 35 years now, and by governments of both parties.”
The Chinese authorities could have used the international language to present their position and express their anger, no! On November 15, CCTV attacked Pompeo as “scum” and “shit-stirrer” with a barrage of obscenities, saying he was “like a rogue gambler with red eyes” and so on. There are comments that CCTV wanted to disgust others, but ended up reeking of its own stench.
Taiwan’s senior media person Huang Chuang-xia asked on the 19th, CCTV angrily denounced Pompeo as a “shit-stirrer”, if Pompeo is the “stick”, then which “shit” is stirred by him?
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