A senior Chinese diplomat acknowledged on Oct. 19 that he had pulled the hair of a protester who was then beaten at the Consulate General in Manchester.
Consul General Zheng Xiyuan told Sky News that it was his “duty” to do so because the protester had insulted his country and his leader. He also claimed that a man had threatened his colleague’s life.
Beaten Over a Caricature
On Oct. 16, Bob Chan, a British National (Overseas) migrant from Hong Kong, was attending a peaceful protest outside the consulate when he was dragged onto consulate grounds by a group of men from the consulate and beaten.Chan said he was trying to stop the men from taking a large poster, which depicted a caricature of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as an emperor wearing no clothes.
Zheng, who wore a mask, a hat, and a scarf, was filmed kicking and ripping two other posters. He then pulled Chan’s hair in an apparent attempt to help drag Chan through the gate.
Chan was subsequently punched and kicked on the consular grounds before a police officer ran to his aid.
Other officers lined up at the gate, and one officer was heard saying that they couldn’t go in.
A spokesperson for the protest organiser previously told The Epoch Times that some of Chan’s hair was ripped off. He also had a swollen eye and cuts and bruises on his head and body.
Zheng: It’s My Duty
Before Oct. 19, it had been widely speculated on social media that Zheng was at the scene based on the appearance of the masked man, who Zheng has now acknowledged was him.“To pull his hair?” he was asked.
Zheng responded, “Yeah, I think any diplomat [would react in the same way] if faced with such kind of behavior.”
He also said it was an “emergency situation” as “a guy threatened my colleague’s life, and ... we try [sic] to control this situation.”
According to previous statements from the Greater Manchester Police (GMP), the officer intervened to pull Chan from the consulate “out of fear for his safety.”
‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy?
In September 2021, Xi told Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members to “abandon illusions and dare to struggle,” three months after telling the politburo to create a “reliable, lovable, and respectable” image, prompting concerns that the CCP will take a more aggressive approach on the world stage.Foreign Minister Wang Yi later encouraged diplomats to fully deploy the “fighting spirit,” while Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said last month that Chinese diplomats “face challenges head-on and fight resolutely on the Taiwan question and issues related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Xizang, maritime affairs, and human rights, among others.”
Speaking to The Epoch Times on Oct. 19, shortly before Zheng’s admission was published, June Teufel Dreyer, professor of political science at the University of Miami and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Asia program, said the behaviour of the man then-alleged to be Zheng was “anything but lovable,” referring to Xi’s speech from a year ago.
But Dreyer doesn’t see the incident as an example of the so-called wolf warrior diplomacy, saying that the footage she had seen suggested that Zheng was simply enraged because “he doesn’t like the idea of people coming outside its consulate and shouting pro-democracy slogans.”
“Wolf warrior diplomacy is like deliberately insulting, and I see this incident as more or less spontaneous,” Dreyer said.
However, two former China-stationed UK diplomats believe that Zheng’s move was more calculated.
Charles Parton, an associate fellow at the Council on Geostrategy who spent much of his diplomatic career in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, said the beating wasn’t necessarily premeditated, but the incident, which started when consulate personnel tried to take posters by force, “would have been premeditated.”
“The officials have to show that they are as keen as mustard,” Parton said, noting that he suspects Zheng would have thought it was a good idea to do something about the protest.
“I mean, to have them protesting with very rude pictures of Xi Jinping outside your consulate would not be a good career move if you just did nothing about it. You kind of have to tear them down. Otherwise, you'd be very much criticised back in the ministry.”
Roger Garside, an associate fellow at Henry Jackson Society’s Asia Studies Centre, said he believes that Zheng was “hoping to distinguish himself in the eyes of his senior colleagues.”
There may have been “an element of personal career aspiration,” but Zheng “certainly believes he is entirely in line with guidance from Beijing,” he said.
In a later email to The Epoch Times, Garside wrote that he believes consulate staff “were determined both to seize the banners and punish the protesters” because “they have no respect for British law, let alone the right to protest peacefully.”
Asked what the UK government should do, he said it needs to weigh its options after the police establish the facts, and if individuals are proven to have used violence against Chan, they must be declared persona non grata and be prosecuted if possible, noting that prosecution may not be possible owing to diplomatic immunity.
Parton said the government could declare those who are involved persona non grata, but he doesn’t believe it “necessarily will” and argued that the reaction will probably be “somewhat overstepping the mark.”
He believes that Chinese Ambassador to the UK Zhen Zeguang should get a warning, reminding him of the British law, “which is you can protest and you can put up posters as you will, even if they are unpleasant.”
“If they do it again, then we will ask for them to be withdrawn,” Parton said.
CCP ‘Has Not Changed’ Since Cultural Revolution
Both Parton and Garside were reminded of a similar scene 55 years ago, when a scuffle broke out between Chinese diplomats and police officers in London.They also believe we haven’t seen the end of the CCP’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
Xi’s recent speech “was full of the language of struggle,” Parton said.
Having been stationed in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, Garside thought the Manchester incident was particularly “depressing” because it “shows how little the outlook of the communist regime in China has changed in the past 50 years, 55 years since the Cultural Revolution.”
“There is no sense of trust. There’s no sense of discipline to the norms of civilized international behavior. And I think it shows the paranoia of this regime, which lurks behind their outward shows of strength and bravado,” Garside said. “This kind of wolf warrior diplomacy destroys any prospect of shared mutual trust and friendship.”
He said he had been part of the UK’s effort to “build a new relationship with China and to build trust and friendship” after former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping launched his “reform era,” but the CCP has since “destroyed those efforts and turned what was a benign partnership policy, a benign partnership on our part, into suspicion and hostility.”
