Category: The Diplomat

Between 2019 and 2021, the world witnessed a barrage of shrill and belligerent public outbursts by China’s diplomats. This wave of loud and combative Chinese diplomats assailing individuals and governments in public settings, as well as in the traditional media and on social media, was dubbed “wolf warrior diplomacy.”  The label was drawn from two popular jingoistic action films both titled  “Wolf Warrior.” It was the sequel that became a box office smash hit. This 2017 action film tells the story of a lone wolf soldier battling foreign mercenaries in…

Just about two weeks before Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai was handed a 20-year prison sentence, the harshest under the city’s National Security Law, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Beijing. He walked the red carpet at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, met President Xi Jinping, and attended a lavish welcome ceremony. It was widely hailed as a “break-the-ice” visit, the first by a British prime minister in six years, aimed at normalizing relations with China. The timing, however, spoke volumes. On the eve of Lai’s sentencing,…

They call themselves “rat people,” Chinese slang for young graduates who have given up on conventional success. They join the “lying-flat generation,” who reject the “996” grind (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week), refuse to date or marry, and scrape by on minimal consumption. It’s a dark, sobering self-portrait of a generation that was supposed to be China’s future. The economic numbers explain much of the despair. China’s unemployment rate sits at 5.1 percent overall, but 16.5 percent for those aged 16 to 24. Youth unemployment peaked…

Since 2016, Beijing has steadily reduced Taipei’s diplomatic space in Central America and the Caribbean, reinforcing the perception that recognition, once granted, locks in long-term alignment with China. Now Honduras has complicated that assumption. After recognizing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2023, Honduras has become the only country in the region to openly reassess its China alignment – not because of ideological reconsideration, but because structural and economic constraints have reasserted themselves. The Honduran case highlights a recurring but underappreciated dynamic in Latin America’s engagement with China. A…

In March 2023, a talent show host Zhou Libo had his account on the Chinese social media platform Weibo suspended after sharing a post suggesting that China should, as a part of its “Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation,” annex territories of today’s Russian Siberia. Formerly part of the Qing Empire, these lands had been ceded to the Russian Empire through unequal treaties in the second half of the 19th century.  The idea of China “taking back” by force what the Qing Empire lost during the so-called Century of Humiliation…

During the first week of February 2026, I visited Guatemala City as a guest of the Guatemala-U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While there, I spoke to senior businesspeople, academics and others regarding China’s advances in the country, and the work of Taiwan to support its diplomatic partner. The main takeaway is this: China and China-based companies have made substantial progress in advancing their position through a web of business and personal influence relationships, opening the door to Beijing’s influence and digital access. This foothold could help Beijing to establish diplomatic relations…

On October 23, 2025, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee concluded with approval of the 15th Five-Year Plan, covering the period from 2026 to 2030. Chinese leaders have described this plan as a “crucial link” in the country’s long-term goal of achieving fundamental modernization by 2035. Yet beneath these ambitions lies a structural challenge that threatens to erode many of its gains. Amid rapid economic growth and ambitions for a highly modernized industrial system, China’s population is aging at a faster pace than that…

At a time when China and Russia are increasingly declaring a durable, even “no-limits” partnership, it may be tempting to interpret their relations as marked by friendship and strategic trust. This assumption appears logical given their shared and long-standing opposition to the West (especially the United States) across economic, military, and ideological domains. Such a perception is particularly common among European observers and media outlets, some of whom tend to interpret international and bilateral relations through liberal and normative lenses, assuming that all around the world they function in ways…

China’s information operations represent a systematic, institutionalized approach to global narrative management that transcends conventional propaganda. China has built one of the most sophisticated sustained information warfare campaigns in contemporary history, deploying coordinated mechanisms including expansive digital surveillance, AI-generated content, and platform manipulation.  Bankrolled by enormous state investment, Beijing’s propaganda and online influence operations now extend far beyond its borders, seeking to normalize authoritarian governance and redefine reality itself, one algorithm, platform, and rewritten history at a time. And Tibetans – especially the Dalai Lama – are a prominent target.…

When Chinese authorities raided the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu in 2018, Li Yingqiang, the sole church elder to temporarily escape custody, placed his children in the care of another family and went into hiding. The leaders of Early Rain thought they had prepared for a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) crackdown, yet their efforts were to no avail. More than 100 out of 500 church members were arrested in the 2018 raid, including Early Rain’s leader, Pastor Wang Yi. Authorities later sentenced Wang to nine years in prison for…