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China’s Wolf Warriors bite off more than Xi can chew | Tom Rogan

蘋果日報 2020/12/06 11:38


China’s so-called “wolf warrior” diplomats have made a serious diplomatic mistake in posting a fake photo of an Australian soldier killing an Afghan child. While foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted the actual tweet, one imagines that his senior leadership first approved it. Certainly, that’s how the Australian and U.S. governments will see this situation.
The graphic is designed to take advantage of Australia’s recent announcement that its special operations forces engaged in certain war crimes while deployed in Afghanistan. That said, unlike the Chinese Communist Party’s murderous activity in Xinjiang Province, Australia has provided no evidence to suggest that its soldiers murdered children.
Regardless, Zhao and his colleagues are proud of their fake news production. Responding to Australia’s outcry at Tuesday’s foreign ministry press conference, Hua Chunying was unrepentant. She claimed that “the graphic depicts a fact because its creation is based on the inquiry report issued by the Australian Defense Department.”
This is simply untrue. As I said, nowhere in the Australian government report on the conduct of its forces in Afghanistan can we see any evidence that those forces murdered young children? And considering that Australia has decided to be honest about the actual war crimes it believes its forces have committed, we have good reason to trust the government.
Hua wasn’t done. When asked about New Zealand’s condemnation of the graphic, Hua again lashed out. “Does this matter have anything to do with New Zealand?” she asked, “Can it be that New Zealand agrees with or even supports Australia’s deeds?”
This is absurd. Hua knows full well that New Zealand’s raising of concerns over the graphic has nothing to do with its attitude towards possible war crimes in Afghanistan. New Zealand simply doesn’t want to see a situation in which its closest ally is tarnished in an inaccurate way. But by reacting with such ferocity to New Zealand, Hua scores the Chinese Communist Party’s critical.
Much of the world is already looking at this graphic incident and witnessing just another example of Beijing’s bullying and deceptiveness. Already frustrated by the arrogance that Chinese diplomats show when questioned about the origins of the coronavirus, the fairness of China’s trade practices, and the quality of Xi’s human rights issues, the international community now sees Beijing adopting open deception. Beijing needn’t have been so stupid, here.
The European Union, in particular, has been quietly pushing Beijing to adopt a more conciliatory diplomatic stance. The political bloc knows that a little more pleasantness from China will make it easier for the EU to agree on new cooperative agreements with Beijing. And EU officials know that they need the pleasantness to justify their own China dealings. After all, European populations are increasingly skeptical of China’s claim that it offers only “win-win” engagement. If these attitudes continue to grow, EU governments will be forced by public pressure to reduce their China dealings in tandem.
Still, it is the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for the truth that is the most important lesson from this incident.
Making up a graphic and then spreading it across the internet, Xi’s not-so-nice Party has shown that it cares nothing for honesty. It has proved that it will do or say anything, just as long as that action undermines its foe in any one moment. At this moment, Australia is the foe because it has joined U.S. efforts to resist China’s imperialism in the Pacific region. And the graphic is just one more tool China is applying against Australia alongside other pressure efforts such as tariffs and import restrictions.
In turn, although Zhao and Hua don’t appear to recognize it, their actions carry a real cost for Beijing’s interests. Witnessing this unfair and immoral treatment of Australia, and the bullying tenor by which China offers it, the international community finds a new reason to mistrust Beijing and keep its offers of friendship on ice. In that sense, what we’ve seen this week is best described as a self-inflicted Chinese Communist gunshot wound.
(Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner foreign policy writer)
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