China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy Risks Backfiring on Beijing

MIN READJun 3, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi answers questions during a video press conference on May 24, 2020, in Beijing, China.

The growing global backlash against China's involvement in both the COVID-19 pandemic and Hong Kong's political crisis is fueling a new brand of "wolf warrior" diplomacy in Beijing based on a nationalistic Chinese movie. This more aggressive stance abroad exposes a sense of vulnerability in Beijing, and poses two potential risks for the regime -- the first is that the tactic backfires overseas, and the second, and perhaps more problematic, is that Beijing loses control of the nationalistic narrative....