ANALYSIS: The Making of Wolf-Warrior Diplomat Lu Shaye

China's ambassador to France Lu Shaye looks on during a visit at the Zoo de Beauval in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, central France on Aug. 26, 2019. Guillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images

Beijing’s aggressive diplomatic approach in recent years has been referred to as “wolf-warrior diplomacy.” Last month, one of China’s more prominent “wolf warriors”, Lu Shaye, earned headlines after making outlandish comments denying post-Soviet nations’ sovereignty status.

“Wolf Warrior”, a 2015 Chinese film written and directed by Chinese actor Wu Jing, carries a strong nationalist sentiment, glorifying communist soldiers ready to die for their country. The term “wolf warrior” has since become a synonym for ultra-nationalism in China and a hard-line diplomatic approach.

Traditionally, diplomats are anticipated to be polite representatives of their country and peacemakers who defuse crises. Why have so many “wolf-warrior” diplomats suddenly emerged from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in recent years? Where does Lu’s “wolfishness” come from? The answers begin with looking at his childhood.

‘Wolf Children’

From primary school through to college, all schools Lu attended were part of a system established by Zhou Enlai, the first premier and foreign minister of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to train the regime’s diplomats.

Lu began learning French as a child in the fourth grade and received a systematic education aimed at a diplomatic career. It could be said that the CCP nurtured him in his entire childhood and youth and that he grew up on “wolf’s milk.”

Lu was born in eastern China’s Nanjing city in 1964. In 1975, at the age of 11, he enrolled in the 4th grade of the Nanjing Foreign Language School to study French, one of the first eight foreign language schools founded in 1963 at the suggestion of Zhou Enlai, where students were carefully selected from various schools, not only based on their academic performance but also on their family backgrounds.

China was still amidst the Cultural Revolution that year, and political screening of a student’s family was the first consideration in student selection for a school like the Nanjing Foreign Language School.

China Diplomatic Academy, the university Lu went to, was also established at the suggestion of Zhou Enlai.

Known as China’s “cradle of diplomats,” it is a base directly under the CCP’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for training future diplomats.

Although China Diplomatic Academy was once a magnet for candidates because of the expectation of “becoming a diplomat after graduation” and its admissions scores sometimes exceeded those of top Chinese schools such as Peking University and Tsinghua, many alumni who attended the school have left poor reviews. They complain that the school is small and closed, without a basic humanistic atmosphere, and the teaching style is outdated. They also say that the school is filled with bureaucracy, impatience, and seclusion and that teachers would tell you on the first day of school: “Don’t read what you shouldn’t read, don’t say what you shouldn’t say, and don’t ask what you shouldn’t ask.”

A number of “diplomatic wolves,” such as Geng Shuang, Wang Wenbin, Mao Ning, and others, also graduated from this school. In addition, there was the famous “journalistic wolf”—Rui Chenggang, a former CCTV star anchor arrested in July 2014 in a corruption probe.

A file image of then-anchor for China Central Television, Rui Chenggang, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 29, 2011. Michel Euler/AP

Rui rose to prominence by taking a strongly nationalist stance.

It has been widely reported in Taiwanese media and overseas Chinese-language media that Rui had affairs with the wives of several senior CCP officials and was, therefore, infamously known as a “public lover.”

His whereabouts have been unknown since his arrest.

36 Years’ Career as a Diplomat

After graduating from China Diplomatic Academy in 1987, Lu directly joined the CCP’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was posted to Guinea in Africa.

Over the next two decades, he rose from an attache in the Department of African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2009 he became the director of the Department of African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In July 2015, he served as Director of the Policy Research Bureau of the Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group Office.

From February 2017 to June 2019, he served as the CCP’s ambassador to Canada. In July 2019, Lu was appointed Ambassador to France and Monaco.

Lu’s wolf-warrior style began to hit the headlines after he became the ambassador to Canada. In 2018, the second year into his tenure as ambassador, he repeatedly condemned the Canadian government for the arrest of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou.

Lu also accused Canada of “white supremacy” and “double standards” for calling for the release of two Canadians detained in China following Meng’s arrest. The CCP’s Foreign Ministry praised his words and deeds.

Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye meets with media at the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ottawa on Jan. 17, 2019. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

He then sparked more intense outrages in France more than once.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to defend the CCP’s so-called “victory against COVID in China,” Lu accused French nursing home staff of being irresponsible, causing patients to die of starvation and disease.

He had also refused foreign affairs appointments with the French Foreign Ministry with the excuse that he was “unavailable.” He even branded a prominent French scholar as a “small-time thug” for defending a French lawmaker’s planned visit to Taiwan.

He also publicly declared that the CCP would “re-educate” the Taiwanese after the communist occupation of Taiwan.

Ukraine Comments

In the April 21 interview with a French television network LCI, when Lu was asked whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine, he replied: “It depends how you perceive the problem.”

Further into his answer, he denied the sovereignty of all post-Soviet states.

His remarks caused widespread outrage. Nearly 80 European lawmakers have requested to declare him as persona non grata.

In the diplomatic circle under the Chinese communist dictatorship, Lu’s continual rise to the rank of ambassador tells us that his political sense is not deemed inappropriate. In other words, the fact that he has remained unscathed after each of his outbursts is a testament to the fact that he is a wily and tactical wolf.

French media Radio France Internationale (RFI) commented that Chinese diplomats in the past, before former Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, were quite attentive to diplomatic etiquette and skilled in using diplomatic language. However, China’s “diplomatic language” has become increasingly rough since Xi Jinping took office.

Insiders revealed that Lu will be retiring in July this year from his post. If he is to stay in office or get promoted, it is essential that he gains more trust and appreciation from Xi.

People stand in front of images of Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on Sept. 4, 2022. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

As Xi often advocates “the courage to fight and the ability to fight” in dealing with the West, it may be no coincidence that Lu’s “courageous, combative and ruthless” wolf maneuver is the main theme of Xi’s “great power” diplomacy, based on Beijing’s judgment that “the East is rising while the West is Falling.”

Zhou Enlai once likened the diplomatic corps to a “civilian” army, that is, an army without uniforms, and “take a firm stance” was Zhou’s number one criterion for selecting diplomats.

There is no fundamental difference between Zhou’s diplomatic logic and Xi’s. All CCP diplomats are required to be wolves, but Zhou’s approach was more pretentious, with diplomats acting like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In contrast, the diplomats under the Xi administration, represented by Lu, are wolves who don’t bother to disguise themselves.

Favored by Xi

Lu’s big promotions came after Xi took power in 2012, as he left Africa in 2014 and headed the CCP’s foreign policy research in 2015. Two years later, he further fast-tracked in the diplomacy system and became an ambassador to Canada.

It is widely believed that Lu’s diplomatic performance in Africa earned Xi’s approval and recognition. In 2013, following Xi’s proposal of “One Belt, One Road” as the core of the CCP’s foreign policy, the regime began to strengthen its external penetration and expansion while at the same time reducing the regional influence of Western nations such as the United States.

Lu began his diplomatic work in Africa as early as 1987 and headed the CCP’s foreign affairs efforts in all of Africa from 2009 to 2014.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron visit the garden of the residence of the Governor of Guangdong on April 7, 2023. Jacques WittI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

More recently, Lu facilitated French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to China behind the scenes, contributing to the CCP’s strategy of winning over Europe and resisting the United States.

This would have been viewed as a big success from Xi’s perspective.

Xi’s Adherence to Philosophy of Struggle

The central doctrines of the CCP are class struggle, violent revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communist rule is based on a series of internal and external “class struggles,” “line struggles,” and “ideological struggles.”

Mao Zedong, the regime’s founder, said, “Battling with heaven is endless joy, fighting with the earth is endless joy, and struggling with humanity is endless joy.”

On March 6 of this year, Xi openly criticized the United States, saying, “Western countries, led by the United States, have imposed all-round containment and suppression on us, bringing unprecedented and severe challenges to our country’s development.”

In November last year, then-Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrote in People’s Daily that “great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics will be guided by Xi Jinping’s diplomatic thought ... we must be good at struggling, and dare to struggle.”

Since the beginning of this year, Chinese state media repeatedly preached that CCP members must take Xi’s words about “struggle” in January 2022 to heart: “We must dare to struggle, be good at struggle, carry forward the spirit of struggle, improve the skills of struggle.”