A tussle by a top Chinese diplomat with protesters in Britain, as well as a recent victory at the United Nations, have put China’s more assertive foreign policy under President Xi Jinping back in the spotlight.

Bolstered by China’s economic and military rise over the past decade, Xi – who is expected to receive a norm-breaking third term after this week’s Communist Party convention – has decisively turned away from the foreign policy mantra of “stand off”. his predecessors.

Over the past 10 years, Beijing has not only promoted a form of headline-grabbing “wolf warrior” diplomacy, but also created alternative trade and security blocs to Western-led factions and solicited support within organizations like the UN through checkbook diplomacy.

“When I returned to China in 2012, it was clear that Chinese diplomats had received new marching orders from Xi Jinping,” said Guy Saint-Jacques, who was deployed to Beijing in the mid-’80s and mid-’90s before serving as Canada’s ambassador until 2016, AFP said.

“It gradually became more difficult to raise difficult issues with Chinese diplomats, particularly on issues related to the treatment of minorities … freedom of speech and such.”

China’s foreign policy is shaped by elite groups within the Communist Party – groups that “unlike his predecessors are directly controlled by Xi,” said Jennifer Hsu of Australian think tank Lowy Institute.

Xi has chastised moderates at the foreign ministry for a lack of “fighting spirit,” and books on his ideology are now required reading for diplomats.

On Thursday, Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu signaled at a press conference on Chinese diplomacy during the congress that Beijing would not change course.

“Dare to fight and be good at fighting are the beautiful traditions and distinctive features of Chinese diplomacy,” Ma told reporters.

Under Xi, China has been much more muscular in its territorial claims.

It has increased its military presence in contested areas of the South China Sea while a long-standing border dispute with India erupted in violence that left at least 24 dead as of June 2020.

“China’s territorial expansionism coincided with the rise of Xi,” James Char of Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies told AFP.

All of this was applauded by diplomats from “Wolf Warrior” – the name comes from a nationalist action film.

Using particularly undiplomatic language, senior officials have attacked both heads of state – such as Canadian Justin Trudeau being dismissed as a “boy” – and individuals, such as when the Chinese ambassador to France denounced a researcher as a “little thug” for commenting on a visit to parliamentarians Taiwan.

On Sunday, footage of a pro-democracy Hong Kong protester being attacked at the Chinese consulate compound in the British city of Manchester sparked outrage, with the Consul-General himself implicated in the riot.

Zheng Xiyuan told Sky News that it was “my duty” to physically interfere, adding that any diplomat would have done so to “preserve our dignity.”

But while such verbal and physical skirmishes are conspicuous, observers suggest that their primary goal may be to please nationalists at home rather than bring about change abroad.

In 2021, Xi even appeared to be trying to roll back aggression, urging political leaders to cultivate a “reliable, admirable and respectable” international image.

According to an analysis by US think tank Freedom House, the state propaganda machine has spent billions of dollars portraying the image of a “cute” China on platforms like Twitter and Facebook – both blocked to ordinary Chinese behind the “Great Firewall”.

Beijing has increasingly used its economic and soft power to assert itself on the global stage.

Chinese-led initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the security group Shanghai Cooperation Organization were presented as alternatives to Western-led bodies like the World Bank and NATO.

The UN Human Rights Council this month voted against a debate on its own high commissioner’s report, which found that China’s crackdown on the Muslim Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region could constitute a possible crime against humanity.

Beijing had launched an all-out offensive to dismiss the report, with observers saying African countries were facing particularly heavy lobbying.

China is the leading lender in many of these countries after making massive infrastructure investments under the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, though analysts say China is slowly winding down the program after billions of dollars in loans went awry .

Beijing has similarly poured money into the Pacific Islands, South Asia and Latin America – the traditional spheres of influence of rival powers – as well as into the rival powers themselves.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing a backlash after he was accused of plotting to push through Chinese investment in a Hamburg port despite serious reservations from his own government.