"Wolf Warrior" or Peace Lover? China's Heterogeneous Narratives on Twitter

• In Event: Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in a Fragmenting World Order

Abstract

How do rising powers shape public opinion outside of their borders? In this paper, we theorize that emerging powers want to be seen as agreeable and also be taken seriously. To achieve these dual goals in its public diplomacy, we expect a rising power to take an aggressive approach to defending its interests in countries where the public views it more antagonistically; in countries where the existing popular view is neutral or friendly, the rising state will portray itself as gentle and peace-loving. We test this theory by studying Chinese government’s narratives about the U.S. on Twitter accounts for China's embassies in 129 countries. Using all tweets from these accounts between 2014 and 2023 (N=342,238), we show that contrary to the prevailing view that China uses a "Wolf Warrior" narrative against the US worldwide, China harshly criticizes the U.S. only in countries that have a formal defense treaty with the U.S. In countries that are not U.S. allies, China presents itself as being friendly and cooperative with the U.S. These findings shed new light on the heterogeneous strategies a rising power employs to engage with foreign publics online.

Authors

• Tongtong Zhang, American University

• Shelby Grossman, Stanford University