There has been a palpable shift in the tone of Chinese media coverage of the United States over recent months, which has gotten even sharper over recent weeks. For example, Global Times yesterday editorialized, “The U.S.’ vicious attitude toward Russia offers a glimpse into the brutality of great power competition and helps people see through Washington’s geopolitical manipulation measures.… The U.S. is extremely untrustworthy.… China can only be a friend with whom the U.S. has to coexist because it cannot crush.”
An article in the same paper reported on remarks by Chinese scholar and director of the China Institute of Fudan University in Shanghai, Zhang Weiwei, who announced that China’s foreign policy has shifted and is now promoting “equal diplomacy.” Zhang explained: “Equal diplomacy means China is turning from defensive to offensive.… If the law of the jungle is the only principle Washington recognizes, and if the U.S. would only listen to a country with enough deterrent force, the best way to deal with it is treating it on an equal level. The time of U.S. interfering in China’s domestic issues at will has gone.”
