On Monday, Zhao, dubbed the ‘Wolf Warrior’ of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs by his bitingly nationalist tone, tweeted a photo manipulated by a Chinese artist in which an Australian military grinned about cutting the throat of an Afghan child.
With his tweet, Zhao responds to a recent investigation by the Australian army into misconduct among Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, in which 39 Afghan civilians were allegedly killed. “Shocked by the murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn these types of acts & call for them to be held accountable, ”Zhao said on Twitter.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is furious about the ‘revolting’ photo montage and demands that Zhao remove it. At the same time, Morisson is looking for an opening for a dialogue with Beijing, his reaction shows. “There are undoubtedly tensions between China and Australia, but this is not how you deal with it.”
Australia and China have been at odds for some time. This is due to Australia’s special position as a Western-oriented, democratic country and an American ally on the edge of China’s sphere of influence. As a result, earlier than the rest of the world, it became familiar with less pleasant aspects of economic dependence on China.
Australia is the proverbial canary in a coal mine: other countries are seeing a relatively small and insignificant country being punished that does not conform to China’s wishes. Diplomatic rattling is the result. In addition, Australian citizens are being arrested in China and Australian business is suffering from an increasing list of Chinese trade sanctions.
Now the argument focuses on the manipulated photo, in which China behaves as the champion of freedom of speech. After Canberra demanded an apology, Zhao pinned the offending image to the beginning of his timeline.
China is regularly the subject of gross cartoons, and Beijing then demands an apology in vain. Zhao believes he has the same right to freedom of expression as he posts a manipulated photo that passes for art in China on his government account. It concerns work by the young artist Wuheqilin, who processes images with the computer into images with the main theme of his aversion to the West.
Expressions like this are popular in China, not least because the state itself is a wholesaler in nationalist propaganda. Zhao will therefore not apologize to Canberra, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
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