Editorial | Twitter the new battleground as Chinese officials sign up

Diplomatic or not, United States President Donald Trump has changed the way top officials communicate with citizens and the world. China, often the target of his Twitter posts, has determined that the best way to deal with the onslaught is to follow suit. In recent weeks, a small number of its embassies and ambassadors have been signing on to Western social media platforms and broadcasting views on important topics in unfamiliarly personal tones. Given the pressures Beijing faces, particularly from the West, on trade and trust issues, the nation needs to have a variety of ways of getting its point of view to a global audience and turning to the familiarity of Twitter and Facebook would seem an ideal strategy.

Twitter, Facebook and Google email are banned in mainland China, but they are ubiquitous forms of communication in most other parts of the world. Perhaps understandably, the Chinese diplomats who have turned to them have done so gingerly, posting sporadically and choosing topics carefully. They are only too aware of Trump’s stream of impetuous posts at all times of day and night on whatever seems to be on his mind, messages that have too often created controversy and confusion, even among officials in his administration. But they are also mindful that President Xi Jinping told the annual Chinese ambassadors’ conference last year that diplomats should have a global vision in an increasingly multipolar world and play a proactive part in global governance and the building of a new type of international relations.

The foreign ministry’s scripted statements are to outsiders predictable, dry and cold, and no match for the immediacy of the colourful language of Trump’s tweets. Ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, one of China’s most experienced diplomats, responded to the announcement of American arms sales to Taiwan by tweeting that no attempts to split China would succeed and “those who play with fire will only get themselves burned”.

But the deputy chief of mission to Pakistan, Zhao Lijian, courted Trump-like controversy with a message defending Beijing’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, saying the US government handled social issues poorly, particularly those relating to race. Former US national security adviser Susan Rice responded by calling him a “racist disgrace”, to which he hit back with the words: “Truth hurts. I am simply telling the truth.”

Twitter is unfamiliar territory for China, but it gives diplomats more freedom and leeway and shows their personality. China can do better with its soft power and is struggling to be understood amid accusations and false claims. Humanising foreign affairs through Western social media could prove invaluable.