Biting wolf warriors or silent diplomats?

Who could soon decide China's course in the Ukraine war

Created: 06/29/2022, 15:28

By: Sven Hauberg

Wu Gang (left) and Wu Jing in the film "Wolf Warrior 2": The action series gave its name to a generation of Chinese diplomats - the "Wolf Warriors." © Everett Collection/Imago

China is still supporting its friend Russia in the Ukraine war.

However, a slight course correction could become apparent as early as autumn.

Munich/Beijing – The film “Wolf Warrior” hit the cinemas in China seven years ago.

The concoction, dripping with patriotism, would probably have been forgotten long ago if the sequel "Wolf Warrior 2" hadn't become the most successful Chinese film of all time.

Above all, however, the film by director and leading actor Wu Jing gave its name to a group of tough Chinese diplomats, who repeatedly cause a stir with plenty of undiplomatic statements - even now, in the Ukraine war: the wolf warriors.

Zhao Lijian is such a wolf warrior.

Around 1.4 million people follow the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Twitter, where, in addition to short video clips of China's natural beauties, he repeatedly shares crude anti-American caricatures and circulates untruths.

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, for example, he spread the conspiracy story that the virus had been brought to Wuhan by the US army.

And in November of that year, Zhao caused a diplomatic crisis with Australia by sharing a photomontage showing an Australian soldier holding a blood-smeared knife to an Afghan girl's throat.

Australia's then prime minister promptly (and in vain) demanded an official apology from the Chinese government.

Even at the press conferences that Zhao Lijian regularly holds alternately with two colleagues in Beijing in front of Chinese and foreign journalists, he rarely exercises diplomatic restraint.

Shortly after the start of the Ukraine war, the foreign ministry spokesman continued the Russian propaganda lie that the USA might have biological laboratories in Ukraine in which "dangerous viruses" were stored.

Imagine if similar tones came from the German Foreign Ministry, for example on China's role at the beginning of the corona pandemic - a juicy scandal would certainly be there.

China: "Foreign Ministry has little influence on foreign policy"

For many decades, statements like those made by Zhao Lijian would have been unthinkable in China.

After the death of Mao Zedong, his successor Deng Xiaoping adopted a soft, reserved tone in Chinese foreign policy.

With growing self-confidence, however, China's courage to use pithy words also grew.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi once said that his country's diplomacy is about "defending our national honor and dignity."

Wang, a 68-year-old career diplomat with graying hair, does this mostly with cheaply chosen words.

From time to time, however, the foreign minister, who is currently jetting tirelessly around the world in search of new alliances, makes surprising slips.

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Like at the end of May, when he wanted to conclude an agreement with several Pacific island states on the South Sea island of Fiji, but this failed due to resistance from some of the countries.

At a subsequent press conference, the Chinese delegation then apparently behaved so rudely that a representative of the Pacific States had to remind China that it was only a guest and not the host of the joint meeting.

It is also Wang Yi who keeps seeking closeness with Russia, despite the invasion of Ukraine.

It wasn't until early June that he described his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov as an "old friend".

On the other hand, he has not yet uttered a condemnation of the war of aggression.

Wang Yi may be China's foreign minister, but he's not his country's top diplomat.

"It is well known that the Foreign Office has little influence over foreign policy," writes analyst Tristan Kenderdine of Australian think tank FutureRisk in a op-ed for

.

"Although the Foreign Ministry is the public face of state diplomacy, it is usually the last to know what the actual foreign policy is." Countless actors are involved in China's foreign diplomacy, some with conflicting interests.

In addition to the top politicians in Beijing, these include the provincial governments.

"Many provinces are using their limited autonomy to work directly with foreign governments and large multinationals," explain Yu Jie and Lucy Ridout of the London think tank Chatham House.

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"Old friends": Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last October.

© Russian Foreign Ministry/Imago

China: The important decisions are made at the top

China's state-owned companies are also diligently interfering in the country's foreign policy, for example in the course of Beijing's global infrastructure program, the "New Silk Road".

Ports are being built, rails laid and roads paved around the world - and some believe that China's government could use all of this to advance its geopolitical expansion plans.

But the big decisions are made at the top, in the Politburo of the Communist Party.

Yang Jiechi, China's highest foreign politician, sits there.

The 72-year-old was once Foreign Minister himself before taking the last step in his career;

veteran foreign policy experts in the West have known Yang for many years.

In March last year, he was in the headlines worldwide for the first time in a long time.

He and Secretary of State Wang Yi met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Alaska.

In front of the television cameras, Yang forgot all diplomatic conventions for a moment and mercilessly flattered his counterpart.

"The US does not represent the world," Yang raged.

"The United States has no authority to say

Yang Jiechi is still China's top diplomat.

© Kyodo News/Imago

The center of the Politburo is the Standing Committee, China's power center, which includes only six other top politicians in addition to state and party leader Xi Jinping.

"The Politburo Standing Committee still decides on matters of vital importance," said Chatham House's Jie and Ridout.

"Above all, the seven members discuss critical decisions relating to national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the possible deployment of the People's Liberation Army." This is where the decision to remain loyal to Russia despite the war against Ukraine may have been made.

China and Russia in the Ukraine War: "Rock Solid" Friendship

Xi Jinping last spoke personally to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing in early February, at the start of the Winter Olympics.

In a joint statement, both condemned the eastward expansion of NATO and warned against a "Cold War mentality".

It is not known what Xi Jinping knew about the Russian attack plans at the time.

But if he was in the know and tacitly backed the invasion, then Xi miscalculated badly.

Instead of a quick march through, the Russian offensive quickly faltered, while the West showed itself to be more united than it had been for a long time and imposed sanctions on Russia.

Nevertheless, China is undeterred in its “rock-solid” friendship with the Kremlin ruler.

In mid-June, on his 69th birthday of all days, Xi Jinping called Putin.

According to Xi, Beijing wants to “intensify strategic cooperation between the two countries”, and “military relations” are also to be expanded.

Meanwhile, news broke that Russia is now China's largest oil supplier thanks to massive price cuts.

So even if Xi may have misjudged Russia's chances in the Ukraine war, China is benefiting from Moscow's weakening.

And Xi should also benefit.

Because in autumn he wants to be elected to a third term as head of state and party at the party conference of the Chinese Communist Party.

A step for which he had the constitution changed in 2018.

Re-election is considered certain

China and the Ukraine war: course correction in autumn?

Several high-ranking politicians are likely to be retired at the party congress.

Brookings Institution analyst Cheng Li believes more than half of the top posts in the Politburo will be up for grabs.

"Xi's protégés will fill more senior leadership positions than ever before," he says.

It is considered likely that the 72-year-old top diplomat Yang Jiechi will also have to leave for reasons of age.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi could succeed him.

It is unclear who could replace Wang in the Foreign Ministry.

Vice Foreign Minister Lu Yucheng has recently been named as a possible successor.

But the 59-year-old was recently transferred to another, less prestigious post.

Observers see this as a step with a signal effect, also for China's policy in the Ukraine conflict.

Because Le speaks fluent Russian, has been working in Russia since Soviet times - and became a deputy in the Chinese Foreign Ministry at a time when relations between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were becoming ever closer.

He also repeatedly defended the Russian attack on Ukraine.

"Beijing's decision to remove Le from the foreign policy system may reflect concerns among Communist Party leaders that China has gravitated too closely to Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine has damaged ties with the West and weakened the global economy," he said Neil Thomas,

China analyst at Eurasia Group, recently reported by Bloomberg news agency.

China now needs "seniors at the State Department better able to manage relations with the United States and the European Union."

Who that could be instead of Le is open.

Several names are currently in circulation: Liu Jieyi, for example, who is currently responsible for relations with Taiwan, or Ma Zhaoxu, another deputy in the foreign ministry.

Neither are usually associated with Wolf Warrior diplomacy, and unlike the ousted Le Yucheng, they have spent a lot of time in the West: Ma in Britain and Belgium, Li in Switzerland.

Both were successively as China's UN ambassadors in New York.

It remains to be seen whether China's Foreign Ministry will actually be more critical of Russia after the party congress in the fall.

Especially since head of state and party leader Xi Jinping, a declared friend of Putin, will be at the top of the Chinese power pyramid for many years to come.