China’s Aggressive Voice Discussion
- Read the New York Time‘s article “The Man Behind China’s New Aggressive Voice” (attached).
Mr. Zhao is a textbook example of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy. The term’s genesis owes to a tremendously successful Chinese movie that I talked about in lecture notes. While much of the world is alerted to China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, keep in mind that the movie was hugely successful in China. Mr. Zhao is also a popular, albeit controversial, figure in China. Many Chinese people feel America and the West in general have been self-portraying and self-congratulating as saviors for the under-developed part of the world. What is wrong with China now priding itself as the new guardian angel of the world’s suppressed? Do you agree with this Chinese sentiment, or do you think that the Chinese self-glorifying exemplified by the movie and by Mr. Zhao is particularly troublesome because of the nature of the regime (or other factors you can think of)?
- You need to produce at least THREE well-developed paragraphs. One paragraph offers a summary of the New York Times article and the next two (or more) to address the questions.
Choose a peer’s post to Question 1 and write a two-paragraph response. In the first paragraph, explain what you have learned from this post. In the second paragraph, explain whether such new knowledge has changed your view, or that you still stick by your argument DESPITE such new knowledge.
I arranged this as the last post of our seminar for a particular purpose: there is nothing wrong for us to be persistent on what we believe. Meanwhile, though, we should guard against the tendency of belittling those that disagree with us. We should always be humble and be aware that there are things we do not know, and there are sensible reasons for views that we may disagree with. As Confucius famously said: when three people walk together, there must a teacher of mine among them