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6:00 am
Saturday April 25, 2020
Books – Sami Magdy:
From Asia to Africa, from London to Berlin, Chinese envoys began launching diplomatic defense storms whenever their countries faced accusations of not moving fast enough to stop the outbreak of the Corona virus pandemic.
These envoys belong to a new generation of “wolf warriors” diplomats, after the heroes of massive national films in which the muscular Chinese command plays a leading role in killing American villains in Africa and Southeast Asia with their own hands.
The stricter approach is a product of the accumulation of several years under President Xi Jinping, who effectively abandoned the approach of former leader Deng Xiaoping to hide China’s ambitions to rise to the summit and wait for the moment, a report from Friday said. Associated Press.
The Xi government urged its diplomats to follow the “diplomacy of the main countries with Chinese characteristics”, that is, Beijing reaffirmed its historical position as a world power.
“The presentation days are over”
“The days when China can be subdued are long past,” said an editorial in the government-run Global Times, known for its outspoken views, adding that the Chinese people “are no longer satisfied with the fragile diplomatic tone. “
Ambassador Gue Kwangyu underestimated journalists in Sweden and compared them to a lightweight boxer looking to fight the Chinese heavyweight. A comment on the embassy website last month attacked a Swedish journalist who wrote an article about the impact of China’s single-party political system on its response to the virus, according to the US agency.
The embassy said in its comment: “Using this epidemic for political purposes, launching ideological attacks and spreading lies in the name of” freedom of expression “will only sabotage the soul. It is like lifting a stone and dropping it on tiptoe.”
Experts say Beijing sees critics not only attacking its actions, but also its leadership and right to rule.
“If someone tries to attack China on this issue, China will respond strongly. Chinese leaders may think that if China does not respond to that, (it does not respond) it will further harm China,” said Shi Yin Hong, professor of international studies at Renmin University.
Chinese diplomats increasingly turn to Twitter and Facebook, platforms that have been banned in their country. They follow in the footsteps of Zhao Legian, a pioneer in the use of those platforms whose tweets, while in Pakistan attracted large numbers of followers, and also brought former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, to call it a “racial disgrace” that must be separated.
Instead, China promoted him to a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.
“Wolf Warrior”
Carl Menzner, a Chinese policy expert at Fordham College of Law in New York City, said Xi clearly indicated his preference for “wolf warrior” diplomats.
He added that these new-style diplomats “use flowery language abroad as a tool to attract the attention of the national masses in the country, whether among the party elite or among society at large, regardless of the impact on the image. from China abroad. “
Outside, the new high-pitched tone was less appreciated. The French chancellor summoned the Chinese ambassador after a statement to the embassy, apparently in response to Western criticism, as he accused French nursing home workers of running away and “letting (paper) residents starve and diseases”.
The United States also protested after Zhao tweeted with unfounded speculation that the US military may have brought the virus to China.
And Chinese envoys in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda were outraged by reports of HIV-related harassment of Africans in Guangzhou, a rare public reprimand for Beijing by African countries.
The Chinese embassy in Zimbabwe expressed anger and tweeted rejecting “so-called racial discrimination”.
Chinese officials are angry at what they see as Western hypocrisy. They say that President Donald Trump and other leaders ignored the pandemic, and then began to make China a scapegoat once the virus reached their countries.
French President Emmanuel Macron questioned China’s response to the virus and told the Financial Times: “Obviously, there are things that have happened that we do not know.” The top British diplomat said he could not “work as usual” with China again.
The Chinese embassy in Berlin published an open letter to the popular newspaper “Bild” accusing it of “bad taste” to blame China for the epidemic and calculating how much Germany owes it to compensate for not containing it. The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted: “Freedom of expression has limits,” in response to a far-right politician who posted a video on “Spanish antibodies fighting the bloody Chinese viruses.”
Image formation
During the Xi era, Beijing launched concerted efforts to shape China’s image abroad. He used a page from the book that Russia tracked, while mobilizing thousands of robots to support the Communist Party line in tweets, according to Twitter. China has invested money in the official media in Swahili, Arabic, Spanish and dozens of other languages.
“In the past, diplomacy in China was far from the people,” said Zhou Yin, a professor at the China University of International Relations. Now, Chinese diplomats feel that “it is safe for them to demonstrate that they are overtrained. Being overtrained will not be at least a mistake.”
In Thailand, the embassy described Facebook critics as “disrespectful” and accused them of “treason to history” in a social media battle over the origin of the virus and the state of Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Sri Lanka, the Chinese delegation was angered this month after Twitter suspended its account, calling for “freedom of expression” and accusing the tech giant of “double standards.” Twitter restored the account the next day.
Diplomats in Beijing see the virus as an opportunity to assert leadership among countries that criticize the West. Many leaders praised China for sending medical kits and equipment, as the Serbian president welcomed a shipment and accepted the Chinese flag.
In the 1990s, some in China criticized their diplomats as the “Ministry of Traitors,” who were upset by the remarkable respect for Western powers, and nothing more.
“We are approaching the World Theater Center in an unprecedented way, but we still do not have full control over the microphone in our hands. We must confirm our right to speak,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chuning.
