“War-wolf diplomacy,” or diplomacy conducted with belligerent rhetoric, has become a Chinese specialty in the past two years and has been the focus of intense international media attention in the past few days. While the war-wolf diplomacy has caused concern and resentment in many countries, the official Chinese media under the control of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has given it a lot of publicity. The international community is waiting to see how far the war-wolf diplomacy will go.
Is War Wolf diplomacy a good move or a bad move?
On March 25, the Global Times, an English-language edition of the People’s Daily, an organ of the Communist Party, published a story applauding the war-wolf diplomacy with the headline “Observer: China’s ‘war-wolf diplomacy’ in Alaska talks impresses the world; behind it is a battle between the West and the East”.
One of the main features of the Global Times, which is known to many Chinese and foreign observers for its vigorous promotion of nationalism and commercial patriotism, is that it often takes on the role of a so-called market-oriented media outlet to charge the Communist authorities on behalf of public opinion propaganda, saying things that they are not comfortable saying directly or publicly.
The Global Times headline above refers to the Alaska talks, the first face-to-face dialogue between top U.S. and Chinese officials since the Biden administration took office, and the “battle between the West and the East” comment is a clear echo of what Chinese Communist Party leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping said earlier about the current world trend being “the East is rising and the West is falling”. Observers generally agree that Xi’s reference to the “East,” i.e., the East and the Eastern countries, clearly refers only to China under his rule, and does not include Japan or Vietnam, which have territorial disputes with China.
Under the above headline, the first paragraph of the Global Times report praised the diplomacy of the war wolves: “The Chinese delegation’s sharp counterattack against the aggressive U.S. side in the high-level talks between China and the U.S. in Alaska has gained global attention in recent days. The tough language emanating from Chinese representatives at the talks, while new to U.S. representatives and many foreign politicians, does not appear to have come as much of a surprise to the international community. Observers believe that those phrases are commensurate with China’s national power and international standing today.”
While the Global Times applauds China’s war-wolf diplomacy, it has become the laughing stock of some observers of China issues. Among such jokes, World Politics Review, a New York-based online journal covering international affairs, published an article by its editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein on March 24, titled “More “War Wolf” Diplomacy, Please.
In the article, Grunstein wrote, “If any confirmation is needed now, public forums like the Chinese delegation’s talks in Alaska are happy to strongly challenge the U.S. to further confirm that China’s days of trying to keep its head above water are over. Beijing has apparently come to the conclusion that the United States is in decline as a global power and that the Time is ripe for China to assert the advantages it thinks it possesses.
“Reading U.S. news reports these days, one gets the inevitable sense that many observers in the United States agree with China’s assessment (of U.S. and world power) above. Of course, the American decline thesis is an entertainment in the United States, bordering on a state religion. But after four miserable years of the Trump presidency, and after the failure of the U.S. response to the pandemic, the state of mind at the moment seems hopeless and shaken in confidence. This state of mind is reflected in much of the commentary and analysis about the hostile U.S.-China rivalry.”
Then, with a twist, Grunstein writes: “Thank goodness, China’s series of diplomatic blunders in Europe show that Washington can rely on help from an unexpected source in its rivalry with China. That source of help is Beijing.”
Examples of China’s series of diplomatic blunders in Europe cited by Grunstein include the recent extension to Europe of the Chinese authorities’ practice of restricting and punishing private citizens within China for making statements that upset the authorities, attempts to regulate and limit the speech and actions of members of the French parliament as they relate to Taiwan, sanctions against the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a leading German private think tank, and several critics of China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang European researchers.
Grunstein goes on to write that as a result of this Chinese war-wolf diplomacy, “the European Parliament, which must approve the European-China investment agreement agreed last December, has put consideration of the agreement on hold until China’s sanctions are lifted.”
The obvious problem with the War Wolf diplomacy show
With the release of China’s nationalist-promoting film “War Wolf 2” in 2017, War Wolf diplomacy became an increasingly visible feature of Chinese diplomacy in the Xi Jinping era and a common phrase in international media coverage of Chinese news. The English version of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with hundreds of millions of users worldwide, gives an explanatory note for War Wolf Diplomacy as “War Wolf Diplomacy describes an aggressive style of diplomacy adopted by Chinese diplomats under the government of Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the 21st century.”
On March 18, the United States and China held their first face-to-face dialogue between top officials since the Biden Administration took office in Anchorage, Alaska, with an impromptu overtime speech by Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Working Committee, adding a new climax to the war-wolf diplomacy.
Yang Jiechi’s speech, which lasted more than 15 minutes, included “golden phrases” that became a laughing stock in the international media and were heavily promoted and praised by the official Chinese media, such as “I thought you were too good, we thought you would observe basic diplomatic etiquette”. “Let me say now that you are not qualified to say in front of China that you talk to China from a position of strength. 20 or 30 years ago you would not have had that position because the Chinese don’t eat that.”
Yang Jiechi’s so-called sharp rebuttal came after Secretary of State Blinken pointed out China’s harsh crackdown on the Uighurs, cyber attacks on the United States, threats of force against Taiwan, and trampling on and undermining China’s commitment to “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong. Yang also accused the U.S. at the time of interfering in China’s internal affairs by raising the above issues. The “golden phrase” of “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs” then became a commodity of Chinese commercial patriotism, and was heavily praised and marketed by the official media.
However, Teng Biao, a Chinese legal scholar who teaches at Hunter College of the City University of New York, noted that China’s alleged interference in its internal affairs is legally and internationally indefensible.
Teng Biao said, “The human rights situation in China is treated as an internal affair by the Chinese Communist Party authorities, and the Communist Party has always emphasized the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. But in reality it (the human rights situation) should not be treated as an internal affair at all, especially massive human rights violations, such as ethnic cleansing. It’s already a crime under international law, and it’s the most serious crime, and it’s subject to international law.”
June T. Dreyer, a professor of political science at the University of Miami in Florida who has long studied Chinese politics and military issues, told VOA that she was somewhat less surprised and less surprised by the rudeness and insolence displayed by the Chinese side during the talks in Anchorage, Alaska, because, after all, China’s war-wolf diplomacy has been in place for years.
Meanwhile, Kim said China’s claim that the United States interfered in China’s internal affairs is untenable in terms of international law. China’s argument does not stand up,” she said. Because China’s argument violates the U.N. human rights conventions, China’s behavior runs counter to the conventions. I don’t think China is too worried about that, because no country can enforce UN law with force. This is further proof that China simply does not respect the UN laws, conventions, and rules that China itself signed. China also actually reneged on the treaty it signed with Britain to return Hong Kong, which was not an interim agreement, but a treaty registered with the UN. But China says the treaty was nullified when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997.”
War wolf diplomacy shows confidence or weakness of heart
Observers pointed out that the battle wolf diplomacy, led by China’s chief diplomat Yang Jiechi in Alaska, was universally ridiculed internationally and became a joke among overseas Chinese for what has been called theatrics, or overblown performances, in the English-speaking world. On Clubhouse, a real-time online audio social media mobile application, some Chinese immediately organized a “War Wolf Diplomat Contest”, in which participants competed to imitate, amplify, exaggerate, graft on, and make fun of China’s War Wolf diplomatic rhetoric.
On the other hand, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said at the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in March that China is now “able to look at the world on an even keel. Now, Yang Jiechi came back to the United States and said, “You didn’t have this status 20 or 30 years ago, because the Chinese don’t eat this.” Some observers have pointed out that such statements by Xi Jinping, or Yang Jiechi, who takes orders from Xi Jinping, appear to be belligerent, but in fact reveal a clear inferiority complex of the Xi administration.
Teng Biao, a legal scholar who is an adjunct professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, said there is some truth to this view. He said, “Behind this superficial assertiveness, it [the CCP authorities] must have some kind of insecurity, some kind of inferiority complex …… Its inferiority complex comes mainly from the political and social crisis it is facing. In particular, its political system determines that it has no legitimacy.”
Teng Biao points out that there are sharp official-public conflicts in China under the CCP, the CCP authorities’ suppression of ethnic minorities in places like Xinjiang and Tibet, and the poor human rights situation in China, all of which are serious problems that cannot be solved under the CCP’s current authoritarian dictatorship, from which the CCP regime’s insecurity arises, and the war-wolf diplomacy led by the CCP authorities has led to widespread international resentment and the international community’s favorability toward China The general decline in international goodwill toward China.
But Kim De Fang, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, said she does not see the Chinese war-wolf diplomacy in Alaska as a manifestation of an inferiority complex. I can’t agree with that,” she said. I think it [the Chinese rhetoric in Anchorage] projects an image of confidence, not an inferiority complex. I also think the set of remarks sold well to the domestic Chinese audience.”
Jin went on to point out that after Yang Jiechi’s rant in Anchorage, Alaska, the Chinese official media immediately launched a high-profile campaign and merchandise bearing Yang Jiechi’s “golden words” quickly went on sale, all of which was clearly planned in advance.
How far will Xi Jinping’s war-wolf diplomacy go?
While the Chinese Communist Party authorities have repeatedly stressed the need to “set the tone” and “set the tone”, “the Party is the leader of everything in the East, West, North, South and Central Party, the government, the military and the people”, and “the Party is the leader of everything”. In today’s China, which upholds Xi Jinping’s position as the core of the Party Central Committee and the core of the Party as a whole, as well as the authority and centralized leadership of the Party Central Committee, Yang Jiechi’s outburst in Anchorage, Alaska, is widely believed to have been carried out at the behest or instruction of Xi Jinping.
Observers have noted that Xi made his outwardly belligerent comments more than a decade ago when he was vice president of the country and had yet to ascend to the top. Since taking power in November 2012, Xi has consistently pursued a nationalistic foreign policy, and Yang Jiechi’s comments in Alaska and the accompanying propaganda in official Chinese media under Communist Party control are just one manifestation of Xi’s thinking.
Will this manifestation lead to a greater likelihood that Xi’s regime will engage in foreign military provocations or provoke conflict or even war in the near future?
Teng Biao, a legal scholar, speculates that it probably will not. Teng Biao says, “In fact, nationalism is also a double-edged sword, which can also hurt the Communist regime itself if it gets it wrong.”
Political science scholar Jin Defang, on the other hand, says, “I think there is always a possibility of that, unfortunately. But there have been many instances in the past where the Chinese authorities have stirred up public opinion on issues, usually on issues related to Japan, and then backed off. The people leading the protests are often put under house arrest. The authorities just want the protest movement to be enough to intimidate other countries, but they will not let the movement grow to the point where Chinese public opinion seems to be pushing China into war. The authorities will be very careful and will try to control it.”
But Jin went on to point out that the CCP authorities have also continued to play the game of one step back and two steps forward over the past few decades, which is to temporarily back down after strong criticism of their aggressive actions, and then continue to act in a more aggressive posture after the criticism subsides.
The final paragraph of a March 25 report in the English edition of the Global Times, an organ of the Communist Party’s Central Committee newspaper People’s Daily, which applauded the war-wolf diplomacy, said, “It is time for the United States and other Western countries to correct their position and understand that in the current situation, China is not a threat, but comes with the idea of peaceful development.”
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