Unlike his predecessors, Xi has embraced an aggressive “wolf warrior” style of diplomacy. As a result, China is widely perceived as an obnoxious bully throughout the world, which undercuts its expensive attempts to enhance its soft power. It seems counterproductive. What’s the point?
It all revolves around the government’s legitimacy. The regime obviously has no reasonable claim to be “democratic.” Since it no longer believes in Marxism, its right to rule cannot derive from its status as the vanguard of the working class, or its superior knowledge of dialectical materialism. That leaves the CCP only with its record of making China great again, which it exploits to the hilt with the public by swaggering on the world stage.
That’s a problem for both China and the world. Under normal circumstances, Chinese nationalism focuses on the superiority of Chinese culture, and is not militaristic. The new version promoted by the government is angrier and more grievance-based, and sounds a bit like Germany between 1870 and 1945. We know how that turned out.
Can the government continue to turn off angry nationalism as easily as it turns it on? Does it have the ability to back down in a pinch? We had better hope so.