Decoding China: 'Wolf Warrior' diplomacy echoes US mistakes

"Philippines should recognize the risks of playing the role US has assigned it," ran the headline of an editorial published by the state-run English-language newspaper China Daily in early December.

The article comes at a time of heightened tensions between Beijing and Manila over their territorial dispute in the South China Sea, involving various islands and reefs in the waterway.

Over the past few months, both sides have had several confrontations in the region, most notably around the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

At the beginning of November, Manila announced its withdrawal from China's Belt and Road Initiative, a massive project launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping to boost Beijing's economic and political influence by building roads, railways, ports and other infrastructure around the globe.

US 'looking to exploit proxies in the region'

In the editorial published by China Daily — a publication controlled by the central propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party — the paper described the Philippines as having no interests of its own and pursuing a policy on behalf of the US.

Washington is only pretending to strive for a "rules-based order" in the Asia-Pacific region, the paper said. "The US is the biggest threat to the region's peace and stability. It is looking to exploit proxies in the region for its troublemaking, and unfortunately the Philippines has obliged," the article reads.

In September, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi once again warned the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — an organization founded in 1967 to improve cooperation across 10 Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines — against becoming "pawns" in a geopolitical chess game, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.

Such warnings, however, are nothing new.

Wang made similar statements in March 2022, at a press conference held on the margins of the annual session of the National People's Congress. He stressed that China and ASEAN must guard stability in the Asia-Pacific, adding that both sides wanted peace, stability and prosperity for the region.

"The Asia-Pacific is a region for cooperation and development, not a chessboard for games between major powers," Wang said at the time.

Is China repeating US mistakes?

The China Daily article is not an isolated case.

Beijing wants to push the US out of the Indo-Pacific and expand its own influence in the region.

It would appear that Chinese diplomats and, in particular, the state press are adopting an increasingly aggressive tone. But this kind of posturing is not in line with its foreign policy goals, said Collin Koh, senior fellow at the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

"China tends to try to distinguish itself from, say Western great powers like the US by impressing upon the fact that, instead of running for hegemony, we run for common development," Koh told DW, stressing that China wants to be considered a "benevolent great power."

Still, he noted that China behaves like any other great power.

It doesn't mean Beijing doesn't take the interests smaller countries into consideration, but they will do so if those interests align with their own interests, the expert explained. He added that if those interests are not aligned with China's, or seen as detrimental to Beijing, this causes China to act the way it does right now with the Philippines.

China vs. US, US vs. China

China has changed its foreign policy style over the past decade.

Under Xi, Beijing seems to have abandoned the much-quoted dictum of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, "Hide your strength, bide your time."

China's role as the world's second-largest economy and its almost indispensable position in the global supply chains has allowed Xi to pursue a more assertive foreign policy.

Beijing has also been forced to set new foreign policy priorities as a result of the US government's confrontational trade policy, particularly under former US President Donald Trump, said Koh.

"Due to the deterioration of ties with the US, China started to somehow look upon foreign policy issues and frame them largely from the perspective of its ties with the US," he said.

The same can be said for the US, which often views its presence in Southeast Asia in the context of competition with China, he underlined.

China repeating same mistakes of the US?

China is repeating the same mistakes that the US made in Southeast Asia in the 20th century, wrote Charles Dunst, researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the magazine Foreign Policy back in 2020.

In the article, he recalled the 1958 novel "The Ugly American" by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer, which depicted the failures of US diplomacy in Southeast Asia due to what it called the innate arrogance of US diplomats and their failure to understand the local culture. "China is acting in the same way there today," Dunst underlined.

Political scientist Koh said it has taken the US many years to understand regional and local sensitivities in Southeast Asia.

Washington is now able to cope with the divergent positions of ASEAN states, and does not always want to impose its will on them, he noted, pointing out that in a democratic system, there's space for different opinions and objective discussions.

But China acts differently, said Koh. In China's autocratic system, it is a matter of executing the will of the Communist Party leadership, even when it comes to dealings with other sovereign states.

China's 'wolf warrior diplomacy'

Beijing's new foreign policy style has a name: "Wolf warrior diplomacy," named after the 2015 action movie and box office hit "Wolf Warrior" by director and actor Wu Jing.

The wolf warrior diplomats are nationalistic representatives of the Chinese government who aggressively defend Beijing's foreign policy line.

On several occasions, they have referred to other countries as "vassals," "puppets" or "stooges of the US."

Koh considers this type of diplomacy to be counterproductive. "It serves no other purpose than simply to alienate your friends. It creates a bad perception or image of China," he said.

According to Koh, some in the Chinese Communist Party have now recognized the risk posed by this stance. However, this has not prompted a change of course so far, seeing how developments in recent years have affected not only the state apparatus and the media, but also the general population.

"Younger Chinese people these days, they will not tolerate a government that is softening on foreign policy, simply because they are born in an era where they view China, and they know of China, as a strong country, not a weak country," he said.

The China Daily editorial therefore fits the picture, as it tells the young readers in China exactly what they want to hear.

"Decoding China" is a DW series that examines Chinese positions and arguments on current international issues from a critical German and European perspective.

This article was originally written in German.