The US Diplomat Who Loves Calling Out China

Rahm Emanuel, the United States' ambassador to Japan, has had a lot to say about China's political leadership in recent weeks, drawing ire from Beijing and apparently causing some disquiet in Washington.

Since becoming the top envoy to America's most important ally in Asia, the former Obama administration chief of staff, who gained a reputation for going off script during his time at the White House, has regularly taken to social media to needle the Chinese government over its opaque and at times contradictory policies.

After the alleged Chinese spy balloon incident derailed a planned U.S.-China rapprochement in February, President Joe Biden spent the following months sending cabinet officials to Beijing in what has so far been one-sided outreach. With a summit between Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, likely to happen this fall, the U.S. president's national security aides have asked Emanuel to tone it down, according to multiple reports.

Emanuel's posts on X, formerly Twitter, made headlines earlier this month when he weighed in on the surprise ousters this summer of now former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a pair of top rocket force officials, and Li Shangfu, China's defense minister. His comments referenced some of Beijing's most touchy subjects—the longevity of its senior leadership and Xi's tendency to purge officials.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Emanuel wrote, quoting a line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He then speculated that Li might have been placed under house arrest and said: "Might be getting crowded in there."

Emanuel, who was hand-picked by Biden, has taken aim at China in no fewer than five X posts this week alone. The former congressman and Chicago mayor has drawn comparisons to China's so-called "wolf warrior" diplomats, whose nationalistic and sometimes inflammatory statements have strained relations with their host countries in recent years.

On Thursday, Emanuel lauded the "united front" presented by U.S. and Japanese government agencies against cyber activity linked to the Chinese Communist Party. In its annual report, the office of U.S. intelligence community chief Avril Haines said China was the "most active and persistent cyber espionage threat" to public and private sector networks in the United States.

A day earlier, the U.S. ambassador shared a photo of himself dining on "Fukushima's finest," referring to seafood from the Japanese prefecture most affected by tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011. Emanuel was joined by high-ranking Japanese defense officials and Adm. John Aquilino, head of the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and stressed the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance in light of China's militarization of the South China Sea and its economic coercion.

His post was a dig at Beijing's fierce propaganda campaign against Japan's decision to release over a million tons of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its sampling of the diluted wastewater showed it remained within safe ranges, but the IAEA's assessment hasn't stopped Chinese diplomats from taking their complaints to the United Nations and other fora.

China issued a blanket ban on all Japanese aquatic products in August, a move that has yet to be replicated by other countries in the region. The Thailand Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that seafood from Japan posed no health risks.

Emanuel sought to highlight the political nature of the Chinese government's ban on Wednesday when he posted aerial surveillance photos showing Chinese fishing boats operating within Japanese fishing grounds.

"One month later and zero tritium detected in the Fukushima waters according to Japan Fisheries Agency. Seems like China got a jump on the news; no wonder they continue to catch fish in Japan's [exclusive economic zone]," the diplomat wrote. "They have a choice between fiction or fact, and they choose fiction so they can keep fishing. Everyone can see through China's smoke & mirrors."

Mao Ning, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on Friday that U.S. politicians should "stop being biased in favor of and condoning Japan's irresponsible behavior."

On Thursday, at another daily press briefing, Mao's colleague Wang Wenbin didn't respond to a question about when Beijing would release radioactivity data on the water it had tested in order to back up its concerns.

The U.S. State Department didn't respond to Newsweek's request for comment before publication.