‘Original Wolf Warrior’? How Philippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin tries to outdo China’s diplomats on Twitter

For years now, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr has been firing off tweets that would have given Donald Trump pause.

The 72-year-old’s stream-of-consciousness Twitter ramblings run the gamut from murderous threats – once calling for journalists to be dumped into a cauldron and set on fire – and tactless abuse marked by homophobia, misogyny and racism; to critiques of books, films, art and food and offers of help with passports to stranded Filipinos.

He recently boasted of being “the original Wolf Warrior” – a reference to the more combative style of foreign-policy messaging adopted by some senior Chinese diplomats in recent years – and has long refused to censor his remarks on social media, no matter the offence caused, calling Muslims “towel heads”, Vice-President Leni Robredo an “idiot” and the archbishop of Davao “a moron in a white Mu-Mu” in the past.

As the Philippines’ top diplomat under the notoriously foul-mouthed Rodrigo Duterte, Locsin seemed like he could get away with tweeting anything – even going on television to brag of the trust the president places in him. On May 3, however, the fast-talking foreign secretary discovered there was a line even he could not cross.

That was the day, in response to the continued presence of Chinese vessels near a disputed reef, that he tweeted China was an “ugly oaf” that should “get the f*** out” of the Philippines’ waters, later explaining to his more than 681,000 Twitter followers that the “usual suave diplomatic speak gets nothing done”.

His attempt to out-Wolf Warrior China’s diplomats earned rebukes from not only Duterte, who called it “rude and disrespectful”, but also the Philippine president’s spokesman and China’s foreign ministry. By then Locsin had already apologised, though only to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, who he praised as “the most elegant mind in diplomacy with manners to match” in a series of fawning tweets.