Our new “wolf warrior” index on Chinese diplomacy

To assess the current posture of China’s diplomacy, we downloaded all 16,000 press conference answers given by foreign-ministry spokespersons since 2018.

CHINA’S DIPLOMATS could hardly be more busy. More than 20 global leaders have descended on Beijing in recent weeks amid pomp and ceremony. An even greater show may be needed should President Donald Trump visit China next month. Talks between top Chinese and American officials in Spain in recent days suggest the idea is not an impossibility. Knowing exactly what to say, and in what tone, is critical amid all this excitement. Our new index shows that one diplomatic style, once favoured by Chinese bigwigs, will almost certainly be avoided: the “wolf warrior” posturing so prevalent in recent years.

In an apparent message to Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on SCO members to oppose "bullying behaviour" and "cold war mentality"(AP)

This confrontational diplomacy takes its name from the “Wolf Warrior” series of jingoistic blockbusters, in which Leng Feng, a kind of Chinese Rambo, fights off foreign baddies. One of its greatest practitioners was Zhao Lijian, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson from 2019 to 2023. He once told a Bloomberg journalist that members of the Five Eyes alliance should be careful, “lest their eyes be poked blind”.

Why the shift to wolf-warring in the first place? It’s possible that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, wanted to stamp out any ideological laxity among the foreign ministry’s cadres, suggests Ito Asei of the University of Tokyo. It might also have been a distraction from China’s domestic woes, such as covid-19. Lu Shaye, China’s envoy to France from 2019 to 2025 and a prominent wolf warrior, argued it was simply “self-defence” against aggressive foreigners.

To assess the current posture of China’s diplomacy, we downloaded all 16,000 press conference answers given by foreign-ministry spokespersons since 2018. We then asked ChatGPT to grade the belligerence of each on a scale from zero to one. The results—the “wolf warrior” index—show that China’s diplomatic rejoinders became sharply more bellicose starting in 2019 (see chart). Average aggressiveness rose from below 0.3 in 2018 to over 0.45 in May 2021. Since mid-2022, however, it has steadily fallen. By the beginning of this year, the foreign ministry’s language had softened to levels of cordiality not seen in the past six years or so.

Chart(The Economist.)

Much of the vitriol appears to have been hurled at America. We used an algorithm to chop the answers up into individual words, then looked at which ones appeared frequently in the most aggressive answers (those with an aggressiveness score above 0.7). The words “American-side” and “America” appeared in almost half of them. Other high-scorers include “security” (32%), “principles” (25%) and “sovereignty” (23%). Taiwan, which China insists is a matter of domestic politics, appeared in 16% of belligerent responses.

In just a few short years the wolf warriors caused severe damage. Their comments triggered diplomatic blowback and soured relations with Australia and the EU, among others. Globally, public opinion on China tanked. An experiment run by Weifang Xu of Emory University in America found that although exposure to wolfish rhetoric increased Chinese support for the government, it antagonised Americans and made them favour aggressive policies towards China.

All that probably influenced the decision to change tack. In 2021 Mr Xi chaired a study session that mulled building a “credible, lovable and respectable” image of China. “Economic concerns undoubtedly play a significant role,” argues Duan Xiaolin of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Perhaps the country’s diplomats did not want to scare off commercial partners in uncertain times. China has distanced itself from Mr Lu and other wolves as snarling seems less effective than smiling.

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter, to understand what the world makes of China—and what China makes of the world.