Why China’s fiercest Wolf Warrior in Sweden was just fighting the good fight

Gui Congyou, who ended his term as Chinese ambassador last month, gained notoriety with his unusually strident, confrontational posture
But ‘shotgun’ diplomats such as Gui are only responding to the leadership’s calls for a ‘fighting spirit’ against the Western plot to contain China

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 7:46pm, 12 Oct 2021

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Gui Congyou, China’s ambassador to Sweden and one of its best-known Wolf Warriors, ended his diplomatic term late last month after an eventful four years.

Gui gained notoriety with his unusually strident, confrontational posture, especially with Swedish media and politicians, often hitting the headlines for his blistering criticism of his host country over anything deemed sensitive by Beijing, be it Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, China’s poor human rights record or telecoms giant Huawei.

Gui once compared Swedish media coverage of China to a lightweight boxer provoking the Chinese heavyweight. After Beijing’s much-criticised detention of Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, he had this to say: “We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns.”

His controversial remarks reportedly saw Gui summoned by the Swedish foreign ministry more than 40 times in the first two years of his stint. And, over the last two, there were repeated calls in Sweden for Gui to be declared persona non grata.

Calls for Chinese envoy to be thrown out of Sweden amid diplomatic storm

With Gui as the face and voice of China in Sweden, it was not surprising that he was blamed for bilateral ties plunging to a new low. The senior diplomat, a postgraduate in law and Russian affairs specialist, clearly had a few lessons yet to learn on diplomatic tact.

The blame for soaring negative perceptions of China in Sweden, at a record 70 per cent last year according to a Pew survey, may be laid at Gui’s door. However, it would be neither reasonable nor fair to regard him as solely responsible for Beijing's rocky relations with the first Western country to forge official ties with it over 71 years ago.

Swedish PEN’s 2019 Tucholsky Prize is awarded to jailed Swedish-Chinese publisher Gui Minhai, in a move strongly criticised by Beijing. Photo: TT News Agency via AP

It is still unclear just how much influence diplomatic veterans like Gui and other Wolf Warriors may have on China’s opaque, top-down foreign policy establishment. There are few signs that frontline diplomats get to make operational decisions or set the diplomatic agenda. Rather, they are merely the executors of decisions dictated by the leadership.

That would explain the rise of Gui and many others who have enthusiastically embraced President Xi Jinping’s calls for a “fighting spirit” and the marginalisation of moderate voices that express concerns about the likely damage this might do to China’s global image.

Despite rising tensions with Sweden, the return of Gui is in no way an ominous sign for the career of the 56-year-old, who from Beijing’s perspective has merely stood up to the perceived hostility from the West, albeit a bit clumsily.

It is also worth noting that a rapid shift in the balance of power between China and the United States, especially the fact that Beijing appears to be catching up with Washington faster than expected, may have caught Chinese leaders and diplomats unprepared.

00:59

China's ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy counterproductive, says former Australian PM Turnbull

As Beijing struggles to continue its ascendancy, defying an increasingly hostile world, Chinese diplomats have often found themselves under the uncomfortable spotlight of international scrutiny.

On the one hand, they are themselves not used to China’s newly acquired status as a global power, while on the other, they grow increasingly impatient with what they see as nitpicking criticism about China, and refuse to accept that they may be in the wrong.

For them, China is and will always be on the defensive, and Wolf Warrior diplomacy, such as Gui’s talk of shotguns, is a natural response to the Western plot to contain China.

Cultural Revolution to Wolf Warrior: Chinese envoys on edge of new era

As Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France and another famed Wolf Warrior diplomat, put it, “In the eyes of Westerners, our diplomacy is on the offensive and aggressive, but the truth is, it is they who are on the offensive and aggressive.”

Lu was elevated to the Paris job in 2019 after a two-year stint as China’s top envoy in Canada during which he oversaw bilateral ties sinking to a historical low over the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Wanted: wolf warrior who shoots from hip