II. CHINA IN CRISIS

II. CHINA IN CRISIS
1. A. The Chinese Context
2. B. Behind the Wolf
  1. Table of Contents

II. CHINA IN CRISIS

A. The Chinese Context

China is in trouble. Beijing’s harsh realpolitik is exposed on the world stage: the continuing human rights tragedy in Xinjiang,⁴ the unprecedented crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong,⁵ its negligence and obfuscation in the face of the Covid-19 global pandemic,⁶ its dangerous aggression and provocation against India,

⁴ See Maya Wang, More Evidence of China’s Horrific Abuses in Xinjiang but Little Action Holding Beijing Accountable, HUM. RIGHTS WATCH (Feb. 20, 2020, 1:32 PM) (detailing human rights abuses at the Chinese government’s “political education” camps for religious Muslim minorities), https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/20/more-evidence-chinas-horrific-abusesxinjiang.

⁵ Grace Tsoi & Lam Cho Wai, Hong Kong Security Law: What is It and is It Worrying? BBC News, June 30, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asiachina-52765838.

⁶James Schultz & Sean Carter, China Needs to be Held Accountable for Covid19’s Destruction, CNN, June 20, 2020,

a fellow nuclear power, along the contested Himalaya border region,⁷ the eternal cyber breaches commissioned by China against both the U.S. public and private sectors to include the Presidential election and coronavirus vaccine research,⁸ heightened awareness and concern regarding China’s ubiquity in the global telecommunication and technology sectors,⁹ high-profile allegations that China is using apps especially popular with younger people, such as TikTok and WeChat, for nefarious spying and privacyinvasion purposes,¹⁰ not to mention longstanding smoldering

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/20/opinions/china-needs-to-be-held-accountablefor-covid-19s-destruction/index.html (summarizing Associated Press reports that the Chinese government concealed critical facts about the virus, silenced whistle-blowers, which likely deprived the world of information regarding the virus’ transmissibility and lethality).

⁷ James Griffiths, India and China are Squaring off in the Himalayas Again. How Worried should we be?, CNN (Sept. 2, 2020, 2:48 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/02/asia/india-china-himalayas-border-intlhnk/index.html; see also James Griffiths, India’s Modi Responds to ‘Violent Face-Off’ with China over Himalayan Border, CNN (June 18, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/asia/china-india-himalayas-conflict-intlhnk/index.html.

⁸ Tim Starks, Russia, China and Iran trying to Hack Presidential Race, Microsoft Says, POLITICO (Sept. 10, 2020), https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/russia-china-iran-cyberhack-2020- election-411853; see also Eric Geller & Betsy Woodruff Swan, DOJ Says Chinese Hackers Targeted Coronavirus Vaccine Research, POLITICO (Aug. 21, 2020), https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/21/doj-chinese-hackerscoronavirus-research-375855.

⁹ Sherisse Pham, New Sanctions Deal ‘Lethal Blow’ to Huawei, China Decries US Bullying, CNN (Aug. 18, 2020, 11:25 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/17/tech/huawei-us-sanctions-hnk-intl/index.html.

¹⁰ See generally, Zak Doffman, Warning –– Apple Suddenly Catches TikTok Secretly Spying On Millions of Iphone Users, FORBES (June 26, 2020, 1:46 AM), https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/06/26/warning-applesuddenly-catches-tiktok-secretly-spying-on-millions-of-iphoneusers/?sh=16931c7234ef; see also Nikki Carvajal & Caroline Kelly, Trump Issues Orders Banning TikTok and WeChat from Operating in 45 Days if They Are Not Sold by Chinese Parent Companies, CNN (Aug. 7, 2020, 7:26 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-ordertiktok/index.html; see also Tim Wu, A TikTok Ban Is Overdue, N.Y. TIMES (Aug. 18, 2020, 11:25 AM), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opinion/tiktok-wechat-ban-trump.html.

tensions such as Chinese military expansion in the disputed South China Sea region.¹¹

China transformed itself in record time from a nation mired in poverty to an internationally recognized great power. Scholars are unsure how to qualify China’s success; some hold it is a neocolonial power while others perceive it as a necessary counterweight to perceived U.S. economic and political hegemony.¹² The fact China is not on a path to liberalism means the pendulum in Washington has swung in the last two decades or so from a consensus approach supporting engagement with China to a less flexible stance with calls for intense competition and even containment of China in a new ‘cold war.’¹³ China’s ability to be flexible and opportunistic undoubtably aided its rise; notwithstanding its classical Marxist roots, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is fully capable of embracing aspects of capitalism while maintaining stringent communist ideological precepts. In political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang’s view, “directed improvisation” and not state control is the reason behind China’s economic miracle.¹⁴ If that is true, China’s economic miracle somewhat more a leap in the dark. In either event, China’s political and economic

The TikTok and WeChat controversy belies a consequential struggle: two dueling visions of the internet. The older U.S. perspective believes the internet should connect everyone in neutral fashion and that censorship by nation-states should be rare. In contrast, China is the world’s leading proponent of “net nationalism,” an idea that the internet is primarily a tool of state control. In this perspective, the internet’s essential functions are economic growth, surveillance, and thought control.

¹¹ The Editorial Board, China’s Claims to the South China Sea are Unlawful. Now What?, N.Y. TIMES (July 27, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/opinion/pompeo-south-china-sea.html.

¹² Carmen G. Gonzalez, China in Latin America: Law, Economics, and Sustainable Development, 40 ENV’T L. REP. 10171, 10171 (2010) (“Others applaud China’s unorthodox development strategies and portray China as a successful model for developing countries and as a welcome counterweight to U.S. economic and political hegemony.”).

¹³ Jessica Chen Weiss, A World Safe for Autocracy? China’s Rise and the Future of Global Politics, FOREIGN AFFAIRS (July/Aug. 2019), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-06-11/world-safe-autocracy.

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models are not suitable for export.¹⁵ Authoritarian-minded leaders may look with envy at CCP-type controls but find it difficult to emulate the Chinese system.¹⁶ China’s distinct authoritarianism comes from a discrete socio-historical context. In the third decade of the twenty-first century, the CCP maintains domestic power, in part, due to a robust and almost unimaginably expensive internal security apparatus that by 2011 cost more than the Chinese military.¹⁷

B. Behind the Wolf

On July 23, 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future”¹⁸ wherein he detailed a paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy and detailed the CCP’s designs for global hegemony:

What do the American people have to show now 50 years on from engagement with China? … We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the (CCP) exploit our free and open society . . . . Perhaps we were naive about China’s virulent strain of communism … or hoodwinked by Beijing’s talk of a “peaceful rise.” Whatever the reason … China is increasingly authoritarian at home, and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else… the only way to truly change communist China is to act not on the basis of what Chinese leaders say, but how they behave… I’ve met with Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs who escaped Xinjiang’s concentration camps. I’ve talked with Hong Kong’s democracy leaders, from Cardinal Zen to Jimmy Lai… The challenge of China demands

¹⁵ Id.

¹⁶ Id.

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¹⁸ Michael R. Pompeo, Communist China and the Free World’s Future, U.S. DEP’T OF STATE (July 23, 2020), https://2017-2021.state.gov/communist-chinaand-the-free-worlds-future-2/index.html.

exertion, energy from democracies – (including) those in … Africa … (and) South America …”¹⁹

In recent years, as China attained first-rate power status, it switched to a more aggressive style of diplomatic messaging termed “wolf-warrior diplomacy.”²⁰ The new approach appears popular within China, at least among hardline nationalists and CCP devotees, and breaks with the more measured, temperate, traditional Chinese style of international engagement.²¹ The evocative term comes from a 2015 Chinese domestic blockbuster. The film quickly spawned a sequel, Wolf Warrior 2, complete with the jingoistic tagline “[e]ven though a thousand miles away, anyone who affronts China will pay.”²² Produced with a $31 million budget, Wolf Warrior 2 tells the story of a Chinese special forces veteran who successfully battles American mercenaries and defends Chinese interests around the world.²³ The film grossed $810 million in China but only $2 million in North America.²⁴ Chinese state media took a shine to the term and began using it to describe Beijing’s increasingly bombastic and combative diplomatic language. Wolfwarrior diplomacy is most often aimed at U.S. spokespersons and refutes self-defined spurious charges against Beijing. For instance, a common wolf-warrior diplomatic refrain denies any notion China is responsible for Covid-19.²⁵ According to China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China’s policy is akin to a self-defense measure because China never picks a fight or bullies others but will push back against any deliberate insult, resolutely defend its national

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²⁰ Ben Westcott & Steven Jiang, *China is Embracing a New Brand of Foreign Policy. Here’s What Wolf Warrior Diplomacy Means, *CNN (May 29, 2020), https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/asia/china-wolf-warrior-diplomacy-intlhnk/index.html.

²¹ Zhiqun Zhu, Interpreting China’s ‘Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy,’ THE DIPLOMAT (May 15, 2020), https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/interpreting-chinas-wolfwarrior-diplomacy/.

²² Westcott & Jiang, supra note 20.

²³ Taylor Shortal, Hollywood’s Red Dawn: China’s Restrictions on American Film, 2 BUS. ENTREPRENEURSHIP & TAX L. REV. 208, 212 (2018).

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²⁵ Westcott & Jiang, supra note 20.

honor, and counter slander with facts.²⁶ The shift in tone came directly from the top; President Xi Jinping issued an edict to diplomats in 2019 exhorting them to show more “fighting spirit” in their international engagements.²⁷

Wolf-warrior diplomacy is a misstep; China is conflating an ability to indulge in acts of braggadocio with the capacity to garner meaningful international esteem. Its hawkish, often misleading statements are landing flat abroad.²⁸ For all its global aspirations, China remains a remarkably inward-facing country. The punitive twentieth century casts a long shadow over the weltanschauung of Beijing. That China continues to showcase a tin ear is seen in the promotion of two of its most vocal proponents of wolf-warrior diplomacy: Foreign Office Minsters Hua Chunying and Zhao Lijian. Beginning in 2018, the pair launched a series of baseless conspiracy theories against the U.S. and the West. More recently, they mocked national responses to the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.²⁹ Zhao Lijian in particular seems to embody China’s restless and malcontented diplomatic posture. His efforts are not particularly successful. After peddling a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Army may have intentionally brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak, Twitter “slapped its fact-check icon” on his text and publicly scorned his assertions.³⁰ More interesting still is Zhao Lijian’s venture into racialized messaging. Following international condemnation of China’s repression of its Uyghur minority

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²⁷ Keith Zhai & Yew Lun Tian, In China, a Young Diplomat Rises as Aggressive Foreign Policy Takes Root, REUTERS (Mar. 31, 2020), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-diplomacy-insight/in-china-a-youngdiplomat-rises-as-aggressive-foreign-policy-takes-root-idUSKBN21I0F8.

²⁸ Alexandra Ma, China’s New, Hardline ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy is Supposed to Cement Its Dominance – but It’s Also Uniting Its Rivals Abroad and Dividing People at Home, BUSINESS INSIDER (June 27, 2020, 4:12 AM), https://www.businessinsider.com/china-wolf-warrior-diplomacy-backfiresuniting-rivals-dividing-at-home-2020-6.

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³⁰Isobel Asher Hamilton, Twitter Fact-Checked a Chinese Government Spokesman After He Suggested the US Brought COVID-19 to Wuhan, BUS. INSIDER (May 28, 2020, 7:23 AM), https://www.businessinsider.com/twitterfact-checks-china-government-spokesman-2020-5.

population, Zhao wrote on Twitter “[i]f you’re in Washington, D.C., you know the white never go to the SW area, because it’s an area for the black and Latin. There’s a saying ‘black in & white out’, which means that as long as a black family enters, white people will quit, & price of the apartment will fall sharply.”³¹ Zhao’s tweet was roundly criticized outside China and he quickly deleted it.³² He nonetheless followed up with a subsequent Twitter message noting racial and ethnic segregation patterns of living in Washington D.C.³³ Given the combination of Zhao’s rise and the CCP’s endorsement of wolf-warrior diplomacy, it appears likely Chinese diplomats will engage in further instances of race-baiting.

The U.S. would do well to recognize wolf-warrior diplomacy has more to do with Chinese insecurities than it is an expression of international primacy. Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations, explained in a May 2020 webinar that China’s aggressive remarks failed to adequately acknowledge complex global realities and were delivered “too hastily, too soon and too loudly in tone.”³⁴ Instead of burnishing China’s international image and placating those who may blame China for Covid-19, the wolf-warrior diplomats were undermining China’s credibility while needlessly provoking other countries.³⁵ It may be that wolf-warrior diplomacy

³¹ Huizhong Wu, Move Over Trump: China’s Tweeting Diplomats Open Fresh Front in Propaganda Fight, REUTERS (July 16, 2020, 4:10 AM), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-diplomacy-internet/move-over-trumpchinas-tweeting-diplomats-open-fresh-front-in-propaganda-fightidUSKCN1UB0MQ.

³² See Wendy Wu, Is It Time for China to Leash Its Wolf Warrior Diplomats, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (Aug. 12, 2020) (detailing how other Chinese ministers have faced similar levels of opprobrium. In Paris, ambassador Lu Shaye was summoned by the French foreign office to answer for comments on his embassy website asserting France had left its citizens to die of coronavirus in aged care homes.), https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3097134/it-time-chinaleash-its-wolf-warrior-diplomats.

³³ Huizhong Wu, supra note 31.

³⁴ Wendy Wu, supra note 32.

³⁵ Minxin Pei, China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomats Are Being More Reckless Than Donald Trump. That’s a Mistake. That’s a Mistake, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (June 13, 2020, 2:00 AM), https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3088462/chinas-wolf-warriordiplomats-are-being-more-reckless-trump-thats.

is a historic mistake.³⁶ The U.S. must avail itself of China’s error. If nothing else, wolf-warrior diplomacy is a clinic in how to frustrate consensus-building. It is the antithesis of ordered messaging. The U.S. should go in the complete opposite direction and treat the nations of the world with candor and respect. To do otherwise risks America’s ability coordinate and lead the free world at a critical juncture in history.”³⁷