Wednesday, March 31, 2021

The New Beijing School of Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy

"Boy, your greatest achievement is to have ruined the friendly relations between China and Canada, and have turned Canada into a running dog of the U.S."
"Spendthrift!!!"
Consul General Li Yang, Chinese Diplomatic Mission, Brazil
 
"This is a very unfortunate and unnecessary tweet. Insulting leaders of other countries is not a thing a diplomat should do"
"It is not only undiplomatic, but also against China's own culture of being polite and respectful."
Zhiqun Zhu professor of international relations, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
 
"Those are fighting words, and lack specificity. They're not explaining what it is that Mr.Trudeau has done to ruin the friendly relations."
";Greatest achievement' could be some kind of dig at him."
"China is shooting itself in the foot by encouraging such a confrontational style of diplomacy."
"When China's image suffers, one knows that this type of diplomacy is problematic."
Charles Burton, former Canadian diplomat in Beijing
A police officer in front of a giant Chinese flag takes pictures with a mobile phone outside an exhibition marking the 70th founding anniversary of People's Republic of China, in Kunming, Yunnan province, China September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer CHINA OUT.
Chinese Wolf-Warriors Diplomats' Abusive War on Twitter    TechStream  
"A little more than a year ago, China had almost no diplomatic presence on Twitter. A handful of accounts, many representing far-flung diplomatic outposts, operated without apparent coordination or direction from Beijing. Today, the work of Chinese diplomats on Twitter looks very different: More than 170 of them bicker with Western powers, promote conspiracies about the coronavirus, and troll Americans on issues of race. The quadrupling in the past year and a half of China’s diplomatic presence on a site blocked within China suggests that turning to Western platforms to influence the information environment beyond China’s borders is no longer an afterthought but a priority."
Jessica Brandt and Bret Schafer,  TechStream
China goes out of its way to make friends in countries that become dependent on its largesse, opening up trade opportunities for developing nations; giving out generous credit to countries who cannot afford to pay back the debt and thus become involuntarily indebted; helping to build critical infrastructure in countries of the world that need a leg-up and don't look past the gift horse to view its long-term agenda that might not in future years, be too advantageous to themselves while binding them within China's orbit as unquestioning satellite-vassal states.
 
To those obliging, appreciative countries whose need overrides caution, China turns its smiling Janus face. The scowling face is reserved for those countries which are advanced in their experience of China, whose technologies Beijing is accustomed to siphoning off through surveillance and espionage, who take steps to cut off access to their industrial and military trade formulae, and who take the occasion to condemn the Chinese Communist Party for its stealth infiltration into their countries as well as Beijing's human rights abuses.

Of all people to accuse of China-baiting and hostility to Beijing, Canada's prime minister would be the very least to point accusatory fingers at. Justin Trudeau has gone out of his way on countless occasions to ingratiate himself into the favour of Beijing, anxious to achieve a free trade agreement with the hope of integrating Canada's financial future with that of the second largest economy in the world. Prepared in the process to overlook human rights abuses perpetrated by the CCP, and willing to trade Canada's scientific and technology successes for the opportunity to dine at China's economic table.

A confluence of circumstances beyond Mr. Trudeau's control, however, made it increasingly difficult to placate an irate Chinese establishment when Beijing's demands could no longer be accommodated and the world looked on at Canada's under-performance in protecting its own Chinese-Canadian citizenry from persecution by shadowy CCP-affiliated figures. Subsequent events have created hostility from the fire-breathing dragon that is Beijing in its insulting, vituperative lashing out at Canada, which balks at 'learning from its mistakes' as Beijing demands.

Justin Trudeau's father Pierre as then-prime minister of Canada, initiated a trek by Western governments to Beijing in expressions of forgiveness for the mass slaughter during the Cultural Revolution and the later crackdown on student rebellion crying out for democracy which came to a shuddering halt in Tiananmen Square settling once and for all China's communist bona fides. Democracy in Hong Kong has had its death knell, and only Taiwan awaits its forced unification back to the Chinese fold.

Beijing's diplomatic action came into renewed view on Monday as fighter jets and surveillance planes of the Chinese military entered Taiwan's air defence zone just as Palau's president was visiting Taipei accompanied by Washington's ambassador to Taiwan, forcing Taiwan's air force to scramble in interception of the ten Chinese aircraft, following an earlier 20 Chinese jets overflying the country's exclusive air zone on Friday

Several weeks ago Canada finally publicly supported the European Union and the United States in denouncing Chinese repression of its Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province. Canadian Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Chong who instigated a House of Commons motion to declare the treatment of China's Uyghurs a genocide was hit by Chinese sanctions.

Last week the French government called in China's ambassador to Paris for discussions relating to tweets attacking French lawmakers while labelling a think tank analyst critical of Beijing a "small-time hoodlum" and "crazed hyena", fully abandoning all pretense at civilized diplomacy in its all-out war against its human-rights critics. Its uncivil bullying goes hand-in-glove with its rapacious claims of new Chinese territory at the expense of its neighbours.

Beijing is using its size and influence on the world stage to consolidate its holdings and stretch further and further to acquire more, including land, sea and air. Its odyssey for world dominance in manufacturing and trade, in technology and above all communications, leaves no stone unturned be it the acquisition of precious earth minerals or fossil fuels. It is a conscienceless behemoth intent on swallowing the world to fill its greedy belly. 
Mirko Kuzmanovic/Shutterstock


 

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