Zhao Li-jian Has Been Reassigned!

Zhao Li-jian has been reassigned as the deputy director of the Boundary and Ocean Affairs Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has served as the ministry’s spokesperson for many years. Many friends are going to miss Zhao.

I hope this is a promotion for him. But I suspect it is not. Maybe with the new foreign minister, Zhao is deemed a baggage. 

Zhao had often been a source of my arguments with friends when we discussed China. I have always cited Zhao as an example of China’s inadequacy in international relations. To me, his demeanours when fielding questions are the type of China-bashing reporters love to see about Chinese officials – mean, harsh, too sharp, patronising, unsmiling, Communistic, someone who – in their own imagination – personifies the fictional character Fu Manchu, and what-have-you. To them, Zhao is China’s foremost wolf-warrior amongst its MoFA spokespersons.

Zhao postulated that corona virus was Fort Detrick’s creation and brought into China by the American soldiers when attended the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan in October. On Xinjiang, he bluntly said to the pro-West media that they were “cooking false information and reiterated that “China has no genocide, Period.” And this is what he has to say on Five Eyes: No matter if they have five eyes or ten eyes, if they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests, they should beware that their eyes would be poked. He also created an uproar with Australia’s Morrison government by posting an image of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife against the throat of an Afghan child. (Apparently, the image was originally created by a Chinese political cartoonist in response to the publication of the Brereton Report, which had been released by the Australian government earlier that month – to own up to the war crimes that had been committed by the Australian Defence Force during the Afghan war between 2005 and 2016. The cases include the throat-slitting of two 14-year-old Afghan boys and the subsequent cover-up by the Australian military.)

Being “western” in my concept of what public relations ought to me, I naturally took a dislike of his style as well. But having seen how the pro-West wordsmiths have behaved, I now think China should have more wolf-warriors like Zhao. But the approach needs refining.

Pro-West reporters are beholden to their vested-interest publishers to demonise China whenever and wherever possible. Few bothers about truth. Feeding frenzy is the order of the day. The vicious circle usually takes this form: Someone would come up with some ill-founded stuff. It does not matter whether it is true or false. You quote the source and add some condiments (to claim authorship, of course), and another will add some ketchup here and there. When the “news” reaches the original author, he or she will exclaim: There you are; it is a fact! Reporters and journalists are at best wordsmiths, but many have assumed that they are the authority for one to count on for facts and opinions. How silly!

What should the approach be?

Apply what the West is best at: The Art of Pre-emption.

Most of these reporters are lazy. They gather in press conferences to do daydreaming much of the time.

The stuff that they gather at China MoFA’s press conferences is usually perfect for them to distort things in or about China – especially if the spokesperson is aggressive and defensive, a style which Zhao tended to adopt.

In fact, before a press conference is held, the MoFA should already know what issues reporters will likely ask. The following are just some examples and what preparations should be made to pre-empt these reporters.

On the removal of COVID-19 restrictions…

China might have created for themselves a perfect storm out of its kneah-su (Singapore Fujianese term, meaning afraid to lose) culture. Virus does not care whether you are rich or poor, or democracy or autocracy. It will spread like wildfire if you are not prepared. Their three years of exemplarily handling the virus has gone to waste. There is nothing wrong in removing the draconian restrictions; as a matter of fact, China should have opened up a couple of months earlier. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats were too afraid to look bad – just in case anything untoward should happen during the 20^th Party Congress. But they failed to bear in mind one big cultural weakness in Chinese – kneah-si (Singapore Hokkien, meaning afraid to die), and hence their tendency to rush to hospitals and hoard medicine on the first sign of infection, even they were just suffering from mild fevers and scratchy throats. There is enough herd immunity in the populace, except amongst the elderly rural folks. These should have been prepared for that, especially many old people were very reluctant to get vaccinated all this while.

Only after 60,000 have died (not to be unexpected with China's population base), mostly elderly people, have they started to own up. Again, their approach was defensive in essence. Their defensiveness has allowed Western and pro-West press and channels to have a field day, since many videos did confirm the mayhem in many parts of the country.

What Chinese spokespersons should have done is to own up early. We are also humans; we also make mistakes at times! And show the world that China cares!

With their organizing ability, containing this Omicron round should be just a walk in the park for them. Instead, they have become a source of “there you are” ridicules. There is a Chinese idiom (大智若愚 dà zhì ruò yú – brilliant, but acting like a fool), but this time around, I am going to twist it slightly as 大智是愚 dà zhì shi yú – brilliant but indeed stupid, this time at least!)

On COVID-19’s origin, the majority in the West continues to believe it originated in Wuhan. But having heard so many so-called experts, I dare say nobody can say for certain where it actually began. But with what has been exposed in the US-funded laboratories in Ukraine and what Prof Jeffrey Sachs has written in Lancet, I am inclined to point my finger at the US. What China should do is to equip these published materials and make them readily available at the conference room. Just ask the journalists to read them each time a question of this nature is raised.

On Japan’s attitude and actions towards China…

Kishida is visiting the G7 countries. He is telling them how good it is for the G7 to work with Japan to contain China. Japan’s aggression and its soldiers atrocities are all well documented – the Mukden incident, the Rape of Nanjing, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Darwin, the abuses of British and Commonwealth soldiers after their surrender in Singapore, the killing of countless Chinese in Malaya and Singapore, the pain that was inflicted to MacArthur’s in the Philippines, comfort women in Korea, China and else, and many many others.

It should also not forget to keep reminding the world of Japan’s decision to dump tonnes of nuclear-contaminated water from its Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean!

All the spokespersons must do is again to hand out OBJECTIVELY compiled documents to the reporters and ask this question: Can you trust the Japanese? Period.

Again, there is a Chinese saying: the more you add water, the more to-fu you get. Do not waste time answering them!

On the China-India boarder conflict…

Indian historian A S Bhasin has authored a definitive book called Nehru, Tibet and China on the history of this China-India conflict. Again, Chinese MoF should equip with a generous number of copies of this book to be complimentary extended to reporters or journalists when they ask about this matter. It should seal their mouths in no time.

On Taiwan...

Again, make the reporters and journalists aware of the true character of Lee Teng Hui, Chen Shui-bian, and Tsai Ing-wen, especially on Tsai’s questionable PhD thesis and her father less-than-honourable wealth accumulated in Japan-controlled Northeast and historical materials on Qing Hui or Qin Kuai [秦桧], Wang Jing-wei [汪精衞] and Wu San-gui [吳三桂] and let them know if treasons can be tolerated in their own society.

On the US’s ban on chips and chip-making technology to China…

Too much has already been reported on this. The US has clearly violated WTO’s most basic principle, i.e., the right of Free Trade. MoFA should just keep documenting and updating the US’s actions and make them available each time a question is asked. Let the world see how hypocritical the US is!

On South China Sea…

There was a report saying that Indonesia had to send a warship to shadow a Chinese coast guard vessel which seemed to be prowling in the former’s exclusive economic zone. China must not be too complacent about its neighbours. It should keep its neighbours informed of the activities of its naval and coast guard vessels in the area. Indonesians are a very sensitive lot. Jokowi has shown a great amount of goodwill to Xi. China must reciprocate!

Conclusion

In China’s press conferences, I suspect questions are often planted and answers are read from prepared scripts. And when fielding questions from foreign reporters, spokespersons tend to regurgitate the official lines. They can be very tiring to hear.

China is a poor student in International Public Relations Lesson 101, i.e., The Art of Pre-Emption. It should learn from the West the way to beat them in their own game!