China’s African envoys take Twitter tips from Trump in PR offensive
- Capital letters, typographical errors and an angry tone are becoming a common feature of Chinese diplomatic tweets
- Ambassadors across Africa are joining dozens of their counterparts around the world on the microblogging platform
This year alone, dozens of Chinese ambassadors and embassy officials have joined the microblogging service in countries as diverse as the Maldives, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, the US, Britain, Austria and Iran. And, in October, China’s foreign affairs ministry opened a Twitter account which has quickly built a reputation for its “Trumpian” tone.
In a tweet on December 5, the ministry’s official account criticised comments about China made at a Nato summit in London with capital letters and abbreviated language reminiscent of US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account: “Big guy NOT NECESSARILY threat. Unilateralism & hegemony IS.”
In Africa, embassies and their officials in Burundi, Angola, Chad, Guinea, Mauritania, Kenya, Namibia, Mali and Uganda all have their Twitter presence, along with the Chinese ambassador to the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
The most vocal of China’s African envoys are Guo Shaochun, ambassador to Zimbabwe, his deputy Zhao Baogang, and their counterpart in South Africa Lin Songtian.
Guo, who joined Twitter in April, has in recent months responded aggressively to negative press reports in Zimbabwe and elsewhere while Zhao, also a heavy user of social media, mostly retweets news and reports about China while at times taking a swipe at Beijing’s critics.
The Zimbabwean envoys surprised many last month when they used Twitter to protest an understatement of Beijing’s aid figures by the Zimbabwe government – a matter usually discussed behind closed doors. In South Africa, ambassador Lin similarly uses the platform to robustly answer China’s critics and promote China-South African relations to the rest of the world.