, Columnist
Have China’s Wolf Warriors Fallen Silent?
The foreign minister is striking a conciliatory tone and China’s most high-profile hawk has been moved aside. But nationalism isn’t waning.
A change in tone.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty
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“To dare to fight is the spiritual character of Chinese diplomacy,” Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told journalists in Beijing last October on the sidelines of the Communist Party congress. Speaking days after a distinctly undiplomatic brawl with protesters at the Chinese consulate in Manchester, just the latest expression of an increasingly pugilistic stance on the international stage, his words resonated.
Today, outward signs of that belligerence are harder to find.