Social Media Provocations Are a Geopolitical Danger – Foreign Policy

In an extremely online age, insulting foreign governments is a superhighway to fame and notoriety. Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have already proved handy tools for such provocateurs. Those autocrats’ skin, though, seems positively rhino-like compared with what may be coming our way from China. Planned new legislation will make it illegal to offend “the Chinese national spirit” or hurt “the feelings of the Chinese people.” The proposed legislation is a recipe for diplomatic disputes with the West—especially in a social media culture where provocation has become a course for fame.

2023 has already been the year of the foreign policy-focused provocateur, who has gone straight for the ego of overseas leaders. At the beginning of the year, Sweden—where nothing less than accession to NATO is at stake—turned out to be a perfect staging ground for Danish agitator Rasmus Paludan, who realized he could get massive attention by burning a Quran just as Erdogan was weighing how to view the Swedish NATO application.

The same set of circumstances also made Sweden a perfect staging ground for pro-Kurdish activists, whose protests—including hanging an effigy of Erdogan in front of Stockholm City Hall—got vastly more attention than pro-Kurdish protests can ordinarily hope to get. Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, an unknown until earlier this year, has become an international household name and generated TikTok income by burning Qurans in Stockholm—thus harming Sweden’s NATO application and its relations with Muslim countries.

Swedish opposition politicians, meanwhile, have used Orban in demagoguery, comparing Sweden’s peaceful prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, to the Hungarian strongman. This has so angered the Hungarian government that it threatens to derail Sweden’s NATO accession even more. And in Japan, an American named Ramsey Khalid Ismael, aka Johnny Somali, has made trespassing and being arrested a performance for social media.

Enter Chinese President Xi Jinping. In late August, China’s rubber-stamp parliament discussed draft amendments to the Public Security Administration Law, which would ban behavior, clothing, and speech that offend the Chinese people or government. Offenders risk a fine of 5,000 yuan (about $685) or up to 15 days in prison—but the proposed amendments don’t specify offensive actions, words, or clothing. That’s much like China’s recently amended espionage law, which covers all “documents, data, materials, and items related to national security and interests” but doesn’t define national security and interests.

The move wasn’t directed at foreigners; instead, it seems to have been a reaction to a series of nationalist temper tantrums online about people wearing traditional Japanese clothes and other perceived offenses. Its sloppiness prompted immediate pushback on the Chinese internet, with even nationalists and conservatives condemning the law. That doesn’t mean it won’t eventually pass—under Xi, China has added more layers of legal constraint every year. “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] can always decide on its own what you can do and not do—they don’t need a law for it,” noted Oscar Almén, a China analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. “With this planned legislation, there’s the expectation that authorities should be proactive.” And Alicia Hennig, a China specialist and interim professor at the Technical University of Dresden, told me that “if the proposed changes to China’s public security law are enacted into law, they will also affect the foreign communities still in China, including expatriates, students, and even foreign visitors.” She added: “A fine of 5,000 RMB or up to 15 days’ imprisonment for a statement or action is not trivial. But what actually constitutes this crime is far from well defined. It is essentially another catch-all phrase that allows the government to punish people arbitrarily.”

While working as an academic in China several years ago, Hennig conducted interviews with expats and found that “people were already very cautious, turning off their phones altogether even when topics were not highly critical. What happens when cameras, ubiquitous in major Chinese cities, listen in even when phones are switched off? What happens when students have a more critical conversation in one of Shanghai’s bars? Or when a foreign tourist snaps at a waitress? These changes will only increase the feeling of being constantly watched—of being part of the CCP’s panopticum.”

Enter Western provocateurs and adventurers. If you have the mindset of a Rasmus Paludan, you’re willing to cause harm simply to gain fame or notoriety. And you can gain even more fame by taking your stunts to a dangerous realm, all in the safe knowledge that your home country will move mountains to rescue you if you get into trouble. China’s planned legislative amendment, in fact, creates a new and tantalizing opportunity for thrill-seekers to expose themselves to a bit of geopolitically infused harm without having to be very creative.

All you need to do is walk the streets of, say, Beijing wearing clothing the police deem offensive. Why would anyone expose themselves to such risk? you may ask. Just remember Miles Routledge, the 22-year-old Briton who traveled to Afghanistan “on vacation” during the evacuation two years ago and secured a prized spot on an evacuation flight, broadcasting it all on social media. He then returned this year and was captured by the Taliban, leaving U.K. diplomats with another case to try to resolve. Or consider the unfortunate case of Otto Warmbier, who in December 2015 traveled to North Korea, where he was arrested after allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. The U.S. government made extraordinary efforts to get him back—and succeeded, only to discover upon receiving the student that he was close to death. And this week, two months after sprinting into the country, U.S. Army Pvt. Travis King was released by North Korea—the result of massive diplomatic efforts involving not just the United States but Sweden and China as well.

Today, such prospects matter in China, too, because in the past few years China and its fellow great power Russia have joined countries, such as Iran and North Korea, that are not embarrassed to use Western citizens for geopolitical purposes. Iran has seized not just a host of dual nationals on espionage charges but also some foreigners, including Swedish European Union official Johan Floderus, who went to Iran as a tourist last spring and is approaching 530 days in captivity. The two Michaels, Canadian citizens detained by China when Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. arrest warrant; the basketball player Brittney Griner; and the reporter Evan Gershkovich are hardly the only Westerners seized by Russia or China on flimsy charges. Western citizens, for their part, are so accustomed to globe-spanning travel that many eagerly keep turning up in increasingly hostile or dangerous countries. And today, doing so means they risk creating foreign-policy dilemmas for their home countries.

Of course, Chinese law has always provided any excuse to arrest people, from hazy charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to jumped-up claims of espionage. But the new atmosphere creates even greater potential for a feedback loop between potential provocateurs, angry home audiences, and authorities looking to build their own nationalist credentials. Combine that with the post-COVID resumption of air travel to China and the opportunity to gain fame and social media revenues through ill-considered stunts and you could see why provocateurs may soon be booking flights to Beijing or Shanghai.

In addition to thrill-seekers, there are, of course, also ordinary Westerners who may have no intention of hurting “the feelings of the Chinese people” and will definitely not wear any Winnie the Pooh merch. Even they, though, could discover they’ve committed an offense only when they’re charged with it. The proposed legislation is certain to create never-ending foreign-policy headaches for Western countries, which adds to the dilemmas created by China’s amended espionage legislation.

Given such developments, it’s good news that Western tourism to China has slumped in recent years: In the first quarter of 2023, 52,000 people visited China on overseas trips organized by travel agencies, down from 3.7 million during the first quarter of 2019. But under the proposed legislation, every one of them—and every Westerner who otherwise visits China or lives there—is at risk of arrest. With China often making extraterritorial use of its laws, the offense amendment could even be used against visitors who have committed allegedly offensive acts while abroad. And, Almén noted, for the same reason it would put Chinese citizens living abroad in even greater peril, as China applies its laws to them regardless of their whereabouts. And their home governments are already overstretched trying to find an equilibrium with Russia and China and a modus operandi with Saudi Arabia and other rising powers, creating better relations with India, helping their companies to friendshore, and assisting Ukraine, not to mention tackling climate change.

COVID-19 already struck a blow to the freedom to travel, and the growing dangers of speaking freely—or provocatively—in many parts of the world may do more damage. The U.S. government already advises citizens to “reconsider” travel to China, but large European countries issue no such specific instructions, and no Western countries ban citizens from traveling to the country. North Korea is in the U.S. State Department’s Do Not Travel category. Such strong warnings may become inevitable for China. “We can’t always rely on our embassies to support us,” Hennig said. “I have learned from personal experience that the consulate of my home country was unable to help me when I had problems with my employer, a Chinese university. Another thing I have learned is that when you’re in China, it is better to keep your mouth shut. Today, however, it seems increasingly necessary to understand our own personal risks before traveling to China, whether as an expat, a student, or a tourist.” Ordinary Westerners’ reluctance to spend time in China under such circumstances may not be bad news for Beijing, Almén told me. “This is just the latest law making it more difficult for foreigners to go to China and interact with people. Considering such a law demonstrates how insecure the regime feels. And limiting Westerners’ interaction with Chinese citizens may also be what the Chinese government wants,” he said.

To be sure, China remains a crucial trading partner, and those involved in business or other essential work there should clearly be able to enter the country and expect consular support in emergencies. Those wishing to visit the country for less essential reasons, though, should have to sign a waiver declaring they’re aware of the dangers and won’t expect consular support. Today, geopolitics is so sensitive that there’s no place in it for pranksters, not even accidental ones.