Decades ago, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping said: “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat” (不官黑猫白猫，捉刀老树九十好猫). The former paramount leader meant that if it works in practice, it can be used by China to achieve the country’s end goals. Earlier, during the Qing Dynasty, author Pu Songling wrote that “The black raccoon, the one who wins the rat. This is not empty talk.” The racoon in Pu’s story may not have had stripes but it won. China still likes to win.
At a Monday meeting of the Politburo, China’s top decision-making body, President Xi Jinping followed Deng and Pu by modernizing the saying to “tell China’s story well” (讲好中国故事).The characters may vary over time, but the message remains the same. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, China will use whatever power it has, and do whatever it takes, to achieve its ambitious global goals. Today, those are no less than hegemonic domination.
According to the China Media Project (CMP), some analysts are noticing a language reset is underway in China. But, did this week’s collective study session of the Politburo decide to soften China’s tone because it was too belligerent sounding or does the CCP have another reason for restraining its wolf warrior diplomats? Too often the West has fallen into the China trap, seeing only what Beijing floats above the surface, and failing to examine the depth of the glacial threat. David Bandurski, director of CMP, says the characterization of the tonal change reverts to the Maoist era and is labeled by the CCP as fixing a “public opinion struggle.” Friends in a compliant media, according to China, comply. Enemies in the media, academics, and politicians who complain are neutralized.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) expert advising the Politburo, Zhang Weiwei, explained that China’s one-party system is superior and performs better than other forms of governance. He is known for saying that China has “learned a lot form the West and will continue to learn in the future, but we have a vision today that goes beyond the West… [a] post-Western discourse… [a] new world order.”
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Zhang appears to be the architect, not a moderating voice, in China’s supposed change of tone, according to Bandurski. He says Zhang’s “crossing of the swords” is not new. In a 2020 TV interview Zhang claimed that “The Chinese have a culture of ‘being kind to others’ and of giving face to others, which the West does not have.” Zhang argues that confrontation is the only method of communication understood by the West. China’s lone wolf warrior diplomats may not be as quiet this summer as some envision. As China approaches the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party next month, the West can expect to hear more about China’s plans to remake the world in its image.
What Western leaders cannot afford to do is once again, believe China has reformed and is complying with the norms of the international rules-based system. Propaganda remains a central tool for Xi Jinping and the CCP. Given the Covid pandemic, however, Chinese propaganda may not be capable of forcing the Western world to turn a blind eye to its moves against Taiwan, Hong Kong, its Uighur Muslim minority, military fortification of the South China Sea, intellectual property theft, predatory lending practices in the developing world, and its weaponization of space, to name only a few of the challenges China presents to the world.
DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.