Chinese diplomats are not “wolf warriors”, but are "dancing with the wolves", Chinese ambassador Qin Gang told U.S. journalists on Monday.

He said the job orientation for every new Chinese diplomat is that China pursues peaceful diplomacy, not the so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy”.

But Qin said that these days, China is faced with smearing campaign and harmful deeds of interfering with internal affairs from a few countries.

"In this case, we are obliged to stand up and say no, or otherwise we cannot make our case clear. Besides the diplomats, the Chinese people are also doing the same. We never initiate these attacks, but we defend ourselves against attacks launched by the other side. So we are not ‘wolf warriors’, but just ‘dancing with wolves’." Qin said.

In recent years, Chinese diplomats made some tough responses to some Western politicians, such as calling a few U.S. politicians “liars” when they claimed without evidence that China had intentionally leaked the virus from its labs to cause a pandemic. China opened its labs twice to WHO to study the virus origins and asked the U.S. to open its own, which has been refused.

Pic: Ambassador Qin Gang met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Washington D.C. this August, less than a month after he took office as new ambassador to the U.S.

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