China’s undiplomatic diplomats liken themselves to wolf warriors

China feels that they have been unfairly criticised by the international community which has allowed their undiplomatic diplomats to behave like wolf warriors to use an animal analogue. In other words Chinese diplomacy has developed into the aggression of wolves which is sometimes expressed on Twitter, a social media platform which is banned in China.

However, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, insists that her acerbic colleagues were more like Simba the lion cub rather than Rambo. Although when challenged she said that, “When it comes to defending international fairness and justice, what’s wrong with being a wolf warrior?”.

Zhao Lijian is her deputy and China’s most vocal wolf warrior. He is furious about Australia and has used the scandal of Australian soldiers’ behaviour in Afghanistan to criticise the country. He tweeted a computer-generated image of a smiling Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child which caused outrage in Australia with the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, demanding an apology for the “repugnant” post. Zhao didn’t comply but went further and ensured that his tweet remained at the top of his Twitter feed!

Comment: it seems that China is sensitive about being criticised by other countries (a sign of admission that they are in the wrong?). I’m one of those people who criticise China for their horrendous relationship with animals. Clearly there are some great animal lovers in China, many millions of them, but in general they have an incredibly poor relationship with animals and nature. Their obsession with Chinese traditional medicine and belief in its curative attributes has resulted in driving the Bengal tiger to near extinction, brutal overfishing of giant manta rays, and the persecution of many other animals such as pangolins. All in the superstitious belief that eating bits of these animals improves their health. Science debunks this mumbo-jumbo. It is ridiculous and my message to China is that you deserve to be criticised internationally and constantly. Suck it up and shut up!

And it doesn’t stop there. They are constantly polluting the environment, burning coal to fuel your industry (imported from Australia – shame on you both). You churn out billions of pounds worth of products which are purchased by the West, foolishly. The West should stop buying products from China because that is the only way they can force them to improve animal welfare laws of which there are nearly none in that vast country.

The trouble is as soon as you criticise China or stick tariffs on their goods they retaliate and because Western consumers are so hooked on products manufactured in China, governments in the West are impotent. They won’t tackle China head-on. So the animal abuse goes on in that country. And to be honest the West is disinterested in animal abuse in China. It concerns me massively but it appears not to concern the politicians running Western countries.

It is ironic, therefore, that the Chinese use animal analogues to describe their undiplomatic behaviour. It’s plain ignorance in my opinion. Hua Chunying believes that her country is being ruthlessly and baselessly attacked and therefore they are justified in retaliating like wolves rather than accepting it like lambs. I say the criticism is justified.