ISLAMABAD: In the good old days when you wanted to face your enemy or someone you slightly disagreed with, you would use the phone, write a strongly worded letter or, in some extreme cases, meet for a duel.
Today, if you want to criticize someone, you just need a cell phone, a decent network and a social media handle, something China’s Lijian Zhao took full advantage of with Husain Haqqani.
Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, is a known Twitter enthusiast with more than 85,000 tweets to his name, and last night he retweeted a story by The Times of London discussing the alleged insistence by China’s government that their native Uighur Muslims eat pork. Accompanied by a wide-eyed emoji (arguably the most emotionally layered of all emojis) the tweet was sent and Haqqani got on with his day.
’China demands that Uighur Muslims eat Pork’ https://t.co/dzYRQuL4fd
— Husain Haqqani (@husainhaqqani) October 12, 2018
The tweet, however, did not get lost in the Twittersphere but was noticed by the Islamabad Chinese Embassy’s deputy chief Lijian Zhao, who was decidedly unimpressed.
“Joke of the day. A person without soul and nationality is joining a groundless attack against China. What a pity!“
Joke of the day. A person without soul and nationality is joining a groundless attack against China. What a pity! https://t.co/nPCbYtoqal
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) October 13, 2018
The ensuing spat between the former and current state representatives was then played out on a public forum for us all to enjoy.
“Pitiful act of the day: a Chinese diplomat who dropped ‘Muhammad’ from his name attacks me for tweeting an article rather than denying the article from @thetimes” accompanied by yet another emotionally layered emoji, this time the awkward side glance.
Pitiful act of the day: a Chinese diplomat’ who dropped ‘Muhammad’ from his name attacks me for tweeting an article rather than denying the article from @thetimes https://t.co/FC6AoADxyq
— Husain Haqqani (@husainhaqqani) October 13, 2018
Undeterred by Haqqani’s nudge about Zhao not tweeting at The Times of London, he asked who was paying him to tweet about the story, a nice retort if you bear in mind that Haqqani and his alleged embezzling have been in the news lately because of a warrant being issued for his immediate arrest just a few weeks ago.
How much are they paying you? You’re lying like this and attacking China. I respected you as a former Ambassador, but no more from now on. https://t.co/nPCbYtoqal
— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) October 13, 2018
Zhao concluded the exchange with a “mic drop” movement by letting the former ambassador know where he stood with him. And the retweeting of Anjum Kiani’s claim that creating anti-Chinese propaganda by spreading China’s alleged anti-Muslim agenda was a known whisper turning on fact in the streets of media (and the playing field of shares and retweets).
“How much are they paying you? You’re lying like this and attacking China. I respected you as a former Ambassador, but no more from now on,” wrote Zhao.
“Major funding is going into attempting to check China’s emergence as an international player by attempting to create resentment in the Muslim street against China via planted articles. It all started with ‘China bans Ramadan’ fake articles,” wrote Kiani, retweeted by Zhao.
Major funding is going into attempting to check China emergence as an International player by attempting to create resentment in the Muslim street against China via planted articles. It all started with 'China Bans Ramadan' fake articles. https://t.co/deXWz0B8He
— Anjum Kiani (@AnjumKiani) October 13, 2018
It’s no secret that China and Pakistan are friends, quite close friends — vacations with each other’s families and slumber party friends — so the exchange and the heavy use of shade-throwing emojis would be perplexing if it were not for this day and age and a log of 85,000 and more tweets that enjoy a bit of back and forth here and there.
