Unpacking the Black Box of Hostility:
Threat Perception, Moral Judgement, and Aggressive Rhetoric in China’s Diplomatic Press Conferences.

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Abstract: Why do China’s government spokespersons use aggressive rhetoric in Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) press conferences? A popular hypothesis attributes it to the role of politicians’ personal motives and preferences, as well as the institutional changes they initiate. A competing hypothesis views aggressive rhetoric as a passive and defensive discursive strategy in China’s public diplomacy. To address this theoretical question, we adopt a narrative paradigm perspective to understand China’s aggressive diplomatic discourse. We propose a model of impression management process of “wolf warrior” narrative, highlighting how threat perception and moral judgment collectively construct the internal mechanisms and foundational values of China’s aggressive diplomatic discourse. Using automated text analysis on a comprehensive dataset of over 30,000 Q&A interactions from MFA press conferences from 2003 to 2023, our findings reveal that threat perception is positively associated with moral strength and negative moral valence in responses of spokespersons. Furthermore, negative moral valence of binding foundations can promote the use of aggressive rhetoric and mediate the influence of threat perception on aggressive rhetoric. This study contributes to our understanding of hostility by explicating the role of threat perception and morality in diplomatic discourse, offering new insights into China’s public diplomacy and the research on political press conferences. </div>