Strategic Blunders of Chinese Wolf Warriors

INTRODUCTION

China, a country which leaves no opportunity to besmirch the international cooperation and international law, is unceasingly expanding its borderline terrorist tactics to get leverage over other countries in recent time to a perilous new low. From the planning of forced annexation over Taiwan, sinking ships of countries like Vietnam and Japan in their exclusive considered economic zones, to making forced incursions on the Indian side of LAC, and illegally detaining Canadian citizens to influence the judicial system in Canada.

China is behaving like a bully that doesn’t understand the modern world concept of ‘global cooperation and peace’. And while doing so, China is committing grave strategic blunders that would have severe repercussions in the future. The anti-Chinese sentiment is rising in the world, and the Communist Party of China leaders and diplomats are to be blamed.

WHAT IS ‘WOLF-WAR’ DIPLOMACY?

The leaders of CPC have no qualms in stooping low in front of the international community only to have leverage over domestic politics. Chinese leaders and foreign diplomats have wronged, and unseemly rubbed the line between international and domestic politics. They are not leaders or diplomats anymore, but they are what the international community now recognizes them as – ‘Wolf Warriors’.

The international community has widely acknowledged that China deliberately builds hostility for itself from foreign countries by using an offensive approach towards its dealing with other countries. It does so to simmer the hypernationalism at home. Maintaining the environment of Hyper Nationalism in China is significant for the Communist Party of China to preserve the legitimacy of its rule over Chinese people and silence the critics as anti-nationals. This is what is known as wolf war diplomacy.

The Chinese government uses the filter of ‘fear from other countries’ to china, and based on that fear, runs the state propaganda to create the environment of nationalistic sentiments at home. But everything comes with a cost. The wolf war diplomacy is creating an atmosphere of grim hostility for Chinese nationals outside their territory.

The anti-China sentiments reached its epitome in the world after the COVID outbreak, and many reports pointed to the increased violence against Chinese citizens staying in a foreign land. Some Chinese citizens were also killed in countries for their Chinese origin. But while this is happening with Chinese citizens, all that Chinese government wants is fake nationalism or hypernationalism at home.

China’s transgression on India’s sovereignty is also another wolf war diplomacy that desperately attempts to resuscitate the dying devotion towards the communist regime that is on the verge of collapse after the response it took on the COVID outbreak. China may argue that its citizens are the most nationalistic in the world, but the truth is that Chinese nationalism is a bubble of wrong assumptions. Chinese people are under coercion and brutal authoritarian rule to not oppose the government. There is a growing sense of discontentment among people, but dissent is a crime in China.

Those who dare to criticise the communist party leaders publicly are either arrested or disappeared all of a sudden from public eyes. The recent arrest has been of Zhang Zhan, a Chinese journalist on charges of creating a public disturbance. Her crime was that he questioned the government response on the COVID outbreak and reported on its alleged cover-up.

China does not believe in the use of dialogue with the country’s political dissenters. The only way to shut them up is to use the wolf war diplomacy and portray them as enemies of China. China had reportedly threatened its own students studying in Australia to remain loyal with the Chinese government when Australia attacked China for its cover-up on the COVID outbreak.

Wolf War Diplomacy costs China a lot in terms of its international relations with other countries, and if the Chinese government doesn’t abandon its wolf war diplomacy, then a Chinese related xenophobic term can come into global existence.

GLOBAL SNAPSHOT

We have a very famous Sanskrit Shlok in India, ” Vinash Kale Viprit Buddhi’. The shlok fits well in the Chinese context. Communist China is taking itself on the verge of end, just like the Soviet Union did. Its existence has become a serious threat to its neighbors. India, Japan, Taiwan, HongKong, and many others are concerned about the regional peace and status quo that China wants to change unilaterally. But while China has been flexing its muscles to pretend to be a regional superpower, its forgetting that hegemony is not exclusively about hard power.

China cannot be a superpower if it continues to ignore soft power and diplomacy. China may be at an advantage when it comes to asymmetry in real and military power, but it has significantly failed to generate an ideology that makes the global community believe it as a SuperPower. The majority of the countries would never accept it as a SuperPower even if it becomes an economic superpower in the future.

Countries are also not giving into manipulative Chinese tactics. For instance, Canada recently denied giving into china’s political pressure in order to get the release of Huawei’s Financial Director Meng Wanzhou who has been detained in Canada under its agreement with the U.S.

Canada is policy-bound to arrest and detain the people who are wanted in the U.S. Meng is wanted in the U.S for violating sanctions of the country on Iran. The U.S believes Huawei is controlled by the Chinese government and is designed to pose a threat to foreign countries’ national security.

The U.S, last year had also sent advisories raising these concerns and advised other countries to ban Huawei. Meng is also the daughter of Huawei owner, and she is undoubtedly an influential political figure in China. So, China, in order to get her released from Canada, has arrested two Canadians both named ‘Michael’ on charges of being spying agents. It then offered Canada to release both of them in return for the release of Meng. However, the Canadian President denied bowing to these manipulative tactics by China, giving the message that China cannot harm the sovereignty and integrity of its Judicial system by use of arbitrary coercion.

If we talk about China’s relation with global countries, the Chinese superpower bubble will become more exposed. More than 100 countries believe China to be guilty of spreading the COVID Virus and have demanded an independent inquiry into the matter.

The U.S and Australia have taken a tough stance for pressing the responsibility of COVID spread on China. These two countries are also involved in a direct trade war with China. Many nations that previously had good relations with China have now become hostile to it and its interest after the COVID episode. They are withdrawing from China’s Belt and Road Initiative due to which China will suffer many losses.

CONCLUSION

Countries are also looking for ways to reduce their dependence on Chinese Products. Many powerful state governments like that of Japan and the U.S are working on a strategy to shift their domestic companies manufacturing units from China to elsewhere.

And as the world remains determined to practice economic distancing from China, it would definitely become economically weak in the future. Once, that happens, economic sanctions on China will become more effective to stop it from violating International law.

The world should put maximum pressure on China to reform its current foreign and domestic policy to work more democratically and to prevent it from behaving like a bully. Boycotting China and Chinese Products is an option that the world must practice. It’s a time that the Communist Party of China should use to review its strategic actions and make amends before it becomes too late for China to regret.