A top Chinese diplomat used racially tinged comments in a ploy to garner support and crucial East Asian allies in Japan and South Korea — and took a jab at the US in the process.
In a trilateral forum in Qingdao, a northern Chinese city, Wang Yi, the head of the Communist Party's foreign affairs commission, urged his country, Japan and South Korea to "join hands and cooperate" to "suit the interests" of the three nations and "revitalise East Asia and enrich the world."
Cooperation is the wish of their peoples, he said.
But before joining hands, Japan and South Korea will have to go back to their roots, he said, and remember that their citizens will always be seen as outsiders in the Western world.
"Americans take all visitors from China, South Korea and Japan as Asians," he said. "They cannot tell the differences, and it's the same in Europe."
"No matter how yellow you dye your hair, or how sharp you make your nose, you'll never turn into a European or American," he continued. "You'll never turn into a Westerner."
The foreign foreign minister's comments garnered immediate scholarly condemnation, including from China's own Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.
"We cannot agree with it all," he said during a briefing on Wednesday.
Yi stood firm, however, and added: "Some major countries outside the region deliberately exaggerate ideological differences, weave various exclusive small circles and try to replace cooperation with confrontation and unity with division."
The statement was a direct jab at the US, a global superpower China has accused of hegemony in the past.
Following World War II, the US helped Japan rebuild its government, insisting on a clause in its constitution that prevents it from forming a military.
It does have a Self-Defense Force, but it primarily relies on the thousands of US soldiers stationed on bases in the country.
Some criticise that move as a power play by the US to establish a foothold of control in the region.
America also has security alliances with both Japan and South Korea and has become one of the most powerful allies to both open, multiparty, democratic countries.
China, on the other hand, is authoritarian and boasts a one-party system. Its closest allies are North Korea and Russia — countries the US has historically butted heads with.
The superpower sees itself as the economic, political and cultural center of East Asia and has long sought to reclaim its former renown through the "Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation," a campaign launched by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
Yi added that an alliance between each East Asian nation would allow them all to become "self-reliant" and "achieve sustainable development" — but the most integral part of that would be the elimination of "external interference."
Jeff M. Smith, the director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, said Yi's message was "tone deaf."
"The irony of ... Wang Yi telling Japanese and Koreans, 'You can never become an American,' is that Japanese and Koreans become Americans every day," he wrote. "They're part of the fabric of America."
"What they can't become is Chinese," he added.
Millions of US citizens boast Japanese, Korean and even Chinese heritage.
Bonnie Glaser agreed with Smith. The Asia Director of the US's George Marshall Fund took to Twitter and wrote, "This message will not land well with Japan and South Korea. Does Wang Yi really think that national interests are less important than appearance?"
The other irony of Yi's speech was that he touched on historical events that connect but especially, differentiate, Japan and South Korea from China.
In the early 1950s, China joined forces with North Korea during the Korean War in an attempt to help the authoritarian government quash the more democratic South.
And in World War II, the Japanese invaded China and slaughtered millions of ethnic Chinese, which the East Asian giant still holds over the island nation decades later.
