BEIJING, China — For over a year they have whipped up
outrage against the West, but as China's "wolf warrior" diplomats are
told to tone down the fury, they face an unexpected source of opposition:
nationalists at home.
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Under fire in recent years over issues ranging from human
rights abuses to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing unleashed a new breed
of diplomat that became known as "wolf warriors" — a popular term for
belligerent nationalism inspired by a Chinese blockbuster film.
Foreign ministry spokespeople and officials abroad adopted a
strident and indignant tone to loudly defend the Communist-led country and even
promote conspiracy theories or openly insult foreign counterparts.
But in something of an about-turn, President Xi Jinping this
month urged top political leaders to help cultivate a "reliable, admirable
and respectable" international image in a bid to improve
China's soft
power.
Officials and state media, he said, should help to
"better tell China's stories".
For some analysts, the comments spoke to a growing realization
that years of stoking nationalism at home has left Beijing with little room to
make more complex diplomatic maneuvers.
While the change shows a "broader realization at the
top of the party that China's recent diplomatic strategy... has not been well
received abroad, including among potential allies," said Florian
Schneider, director of the Leiden Asia Centre in the Netherlands, the new
approach requires a delicate balancing act.
"China's leaders have maneuvered themselves into
somewhat of a trap. On the one hand, they have promised the world a mild and
benevolent China — on the other hand, they have promised domestic audiences a
strong and assertive China."
'
Traitors'
Officials and intellectuals calling for subtler messaging
have faced nationalist pushback -- leaving them torn between their domestic and
international audiences.
"Patriotic" Weibo influencers in June turned
against prominent Chinese intellectuals who participated in a Japanese
government-sponsored study exchange program, branding them "traitors"
for accepting Japanese money and writing positively about the country.
Beijing eventually stepped in, calling the program a way to
"build up trust and deepen friendship" -- in stark contrast with
Weibo users who called one writer a "Japanese running dog undeserving of
sympathy."
The online campaign against the exchange program coincided
with a visit by US senators to the democratic island of Taiwan to donate
coronavirus vaccines, to which the foreign ministry gave an
uncharacteristically mild rebuke that prompted the scorn of nationalist
internet trolls.
"Why aren't we shooting them down, they've violated our
airspace!" one furious Weibo user wrote, a sentiment shared by a number of
other users.
"So weak and incompetent," another lamented.
Beijing has often encouraged nationalism when convenient,
including online campaigns that flared this year for boycotts of foreign
clothing brands that made statements about avoiding cotton from China's
Xinjiang, due to allegations of forced labor.
But even some of China's most strident apologists have
admitted that toned-down rhetoric would be more fitting of the major-power
status the country claims.
Hu Xijin, editor of the nationalist tabloid Global Times,
wrote last month that government social media accounts should "hold high
the banner of humanitarianism" after a Communist Party-run Weibo account
posted a mocking comparison between a Chinese rocket launch and the cremation
of Covid-19 victims in India.
"Sometimes this 'wolf warrior' sentiment can get out of
hand," Jonathan Hassid, a professor of political science at Iowa State
University told AFP.
"(But) if China tries to soften its image, patriots at
home will be furious. If it plays to the patriots, the world community reacts
negatively."
Conflicting goals
A change in tone has not equaled a change in approach.
Beijing rolled out a law in mid-June that will allow it to
hit back at companies that comply with foreign sanctions, and has stepped up
incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone.
China also made global headlines this week after a national
security law imposed by Beijing was used to crush a popular Hong Kong tabloid
that offered unapologetic support for the city's pro-democracy movement.
The paper's senior executives have been arrested, as well as
owner Jimmy Lai.
Adam Ni, an analyst at the China Policy Centre in Canberra
said Beijing is grappling with goals that are "in tension with each
other".
"Beijing wants a better international image," he
told AFP.
"But the domestic political drivers, as well as the
need to assert its interests, means that it will continue to take actions that
run in the opposite direction."
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