Chinese diplomats in China-dependent countries are increasingly and openly demonstrating to local societies who their owners are. What is more, they are doing so without any of the diplomacy one would expect from the staff of a diplomatic mission.
This time, the counselor of the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan, Huaihin Giao, launched a verbal attack on Temur Umarov in the comments section of his article analyzing Chinese policy in Central Asian countries, which was published on the website of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
In response to a perfectly correct article with very balanced and diplomatic conclusions, the Chinese diplomat found nothing smarter to write to the author than the following (spelling and punctuation unchanged) «Idiot opinion! Where is China’s expansion? What has China expanded? Show me! You consider yourself a SCIENTIST, a complete idiot — that’s a smart person you found: You consider foreign investment, technology and other aid as EXPANSION? Think with your brain, if you have one. The dog has no happy ending!»
What can we say about this? Both the form and the content of the comment in this case illustrate China’s attitude toward the countries to which it sends such so-called diplomats. It is still hard to imagine that an employee of a Chinese diplomatic mission in the United States would allow himself to be abused like this by an English journalist for writing an article critical of Chinese policies. Not to mention the quality of the «diplomat’s» language skills.
In this context, it is worth noting that this is far from the first incident of such behavior by Chinese diplomats in Third World countries, which they apparently perceive as the entire post-Soviet space. A year ago, for example, we reported on the rude response of an employee of the Chinese Embassy in Moscow to a Russian journalist.
In response to a publication in «Nezavisimaya gazeta» about the slowdown of economic growth and popular discontent in China, Gou Yunhai, a media relations adviser (!) at the Chinese embassy in Moscow, literally wrote the following to the author «You are lying!!! The Chinese economy has slowed down???? And we had (data shown — GI) over 6% economic growth last year, and what is your growth???? Has Russia caught the Chinese economic disease? The GDP of just one province, Guangdong, is much larger than the entire Russia. Where do we have social discontent???? I felt only great discontent in Russian society, especially after Putin’s message.
In both cases, there was no reaction from the diplomatic services of the host countries to this rude behavior. Apparently, subordination is not expected in their relationship.