‘Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy’: China’s Self-Defeating Diplomatic Strategy
Written by: Trystanto
“Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capabilities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.” — Deng Xiaoping
That is a proverb muttered by Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader and the brain of China’s remarkable economic growth and development. In essence, in global affairs, China should stay low and ‘hide’ China’s capability while strengthening its position in the international arena. For over 40 years, Chinese leaders, from Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and in the early years of Xi Jinping’s administration. Needless to say, Xi Jinping has violated Deng’s advice and started to mount an aggressive campaign of China’s supremacy by attacking foreign officials on Twitter and interviews and by aggressively pursuing its territorial claim. Instead of winning itself any allies, China would find itself with resentment, enemies, and without any meaningful partner (except, of course, North Korea. However, North Korea is more of a burden than an ally)
The term ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ is derived from the movie Wolf-Warrior, a rambo-style action film popular in China. This term refers to China using confrontational, conflictual, and combative foreign policy rhetoric in opposition to its friendly and controversy-avoiding rhetoric that China used in the past (Westcott and Jiang, 2020).
Perhaps one of the earliest examples of the utilization of the ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ is the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning, China denied WHO officials access to China to find the sources of the virus. Chinese diplomats then took to Twitter and other social media accounts to spread theories about the origin of COVID-19, starting from the idea that U.S. soldiers brought the virus into Wuhan, that the virus originated from Italy and Spain, and that the virus was made in a bio lab in Maryland, USA (Schafer and Brandt, 2020; Dutta, 2020). It even attacks other countries with a real economic or political weapon when that country is pushing for an investigation into the virus’s origins. One of the best-known examples of this is Australia. After Australia calls for a research into the virus’ origins, China lambasted Australia by imposing tariffs on Australian wine imports (Lucanus, 2020). Even worse, the spokesperson of China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, Zhao Lijian, posted a doctored photo of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan girl’s neck. The Australian government later condemns this action (Bloomberg, 2020)
In recent months, Chinese diplomats and internet trolls (i.e., wu mao) have used Twitter to defend Chinese vaccines and spread misinformation on Western-made vaccine. As China’s Sinovac vaccine only has an efficacy rate of 50.4% in Brazil and 65.3% in Indonesia, many concerns are made regarding its effectiveness. Chinese diplomats and internet buzzers took to Twitter to defend Chinese vaccines by spreading misinformation and hoaxes regarding Western-made panacea. One post on Weibo (i.e., the Chinese version of Twitter) claims that the Pfizer vaccine causes damage to the brain and that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines only have a 23% efficacy. Furthermore, they also boast demands for Chinese vaccines (Paun and Luthi, 2021).
This diplomatic misadventure is not just limited to social media, however. In recent months, China has aggressively pursued and cemented its territorial claims in the South China Sea, East China Seas, and in the Himalayas on the border with India. More recently in the South China Sea, Chinese fishing vessels have occupied Filipino-claimed reefs in the Filipino territorial waters that overlap with the Chinese-claimed nine-dash line (ABC News, 2021). This is despite the fact that President Duterte of the Philippines has effectively kowtowed to Beijing since his inauguration in 2016. In response, President Duterte has dispatched the Philippines navy to the area in response to what Manila said ‘increasing Beijing aggression (ibid). In the China-India border up in the Himalayas, China even went on a short skirmish with India and building villages in the disputed areas last year. Furthermore, China even allegedly launched cyberattacks against India (Chellaney, 2021)
Perhaps China’s most significant diplomatic disaster is its activity in Europe. After years of Trumpian trade war with the United States, European Union-US trade relations are somewhat strained, and a wedge has appeared between them. China very cleverly signed a China-EU trade deal just days before the inauguration of Joe Biden, which could have been a diplomatic coup for China as a division has been engineered between the U.S. and Europe. However, just months later, China began attacking European scholars and commentators and even sanctioning members of the European parliament for their criticism of China (note, however, that the trade deal has to be ratified first by the European parliament). For instance, after a French parliamentary delegation met with members of the Taiwanese parliament, the Chinese embassy in Paris used schoolyard-level insults to attack a French analyst defending the meeting. The Chinese ambassador is later summoned by the French foreign minister (France 24, 2021). This is interference of China in France as China “intimidate researchers and analysts from expressing themselves on topics China considers sensitive, and as such they represent an infringement on their right to work free from state coercion” (Grunstein 2021).
Therefore, it suffices to say that China is on the offensive against its perceived decline of Western power. As Graham Allison noted in his book Destined for War: Can America and China avoid the Thucydides’s Trap?, he noted that Americans love lecturing China who needs to be “more like us [the U.S.]” and he responds with “be careful what you wish for” (Allison 2018, p.89). He was referring to the imperialistic and expeditionary nature of the rise of the U.S. that is filled with conflict. Is China becoming “more like us now”? It is very clear from the examples above that China is becoming “more like us”, albeit relatively more peaceful. Chinese internet trolls tend to defend this action by saying that the U.S. also did that in the past. Yet that is exactly the point: China should not mimic U.S.’ aggressiveness or arrogance on the world stage. Instead, it should present itself as a friendly superpower that is an alternative to an arrogant rise of the United States.
This kind of diplomatic naughtiness will not gain China any allies or help its ‘peaceful rise. Instead, China would only play itself directly into the rhetoric of the United States that China is an aggressive and revisionist power aimed at leading the world (Martina, Renshaw and Shalal 2021). As more and more countries get into a conflict with China, they would start looking towards the U.S. as their ‘savior’ in the face of Chinese aggression. Already some member countries of the E.U. are crafting their Indo-Pacific strategy to face China. France has dispatched its warship to the South China Sea for a military drill with India and port of calls in Indonesia and Vietnam (Chaudhury 2021). In addition, Britain would dispatch the HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group to the South China Sea later this year (Yuniar 2021). Perhaps most importantly, President Biden has re-formed the Quad, made up of Japan, India, Australia, and the U.S., after its comma from 2004 as a multilateral alliance aimed at counterbalancing China (Straits Times 2021).
As more and more advanced democratic countries get into a face-off against China, they would rally around Biden, who could fulfil his vision that he laid out in the Foreign Affairs magazine that when the U.S. “join together with fellow democracies, our strength more than doubles. China can’t afford to ignore more than half of the global economy. That gives us substantial leverage to shape the rules of the road…” (Biden, Jr. 2020, p.71). In short, China is playing right into the U.S.’ strategy in defeating China, and what the U.S. needs right now to defeat China is more wolf-warrior diplomacy to further scare off China’s allies and potential allies.
In conclusion, in conducting its wolf-warrior diplomacy by attacking its critics and conflicting countries, either verbally, economically, or politically, China plays itself wight into the U.S.’ rhetoric. The Chinese’ peaceful rise’ is long gone. Now, China is on the offensive. As countries get wolf-warriored by China, they would feel the Chinese aggression against them and turn to the U.S. for help. Therefore, instead of defeating the U.S., China only make the U.S. stronger as China unwittingly provides the U.S. with allies that it needs.
References
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