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As I see it | Why China’s fiercest Wolf Warrior in Sweden was just fighting the good fight
- Gui Congyou, who ended his term as Chinese ambassador last month, gained notoriety with his unusually strident, confrontational posture
- But ‘shotgun’ diplomats such as Gui are only responding to the leadership’s calls for a ‘fighting spirit’ against the Western plot to contain China
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Gui Congyou, China’s ambassador to Sweden and one of its best-known Wolf Warriors, ended his diplomatic term late last month after an eventful four years.
Gui gained notoriety with his unusually strident, confrontational posture, especially with Swedish media and politicians, often hitting the headlines for his blistering criticism of his host country over anything deemed sensitive by Beijing, be it Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, China’s poor human rights record or telecoms giant Huawei.
Gui once compared Swedish media coverage of China to a lightweight boxer provoking the Chinese heavyweight. After Beijing’s much-criticised detention of Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, he had this to say: “We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns.”
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His controversial remarks reportedly saw Gui summoned by the Swedish foreign ministry more than 40 times in the first two years of his stint. And, over the last two, there were repeated calls in Sweden for Gui to be declared persona non grata.
With Gui as the face and voice of China in Sweden, it was not surprising that he was blamed for bilateral ties plunging to a new low. The senior diplomat, a postgraduate in law and Russian affairs specialist, clearly had a few lessons yet to learn on diplomatic tact.
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