China’s Ministry of National Defense publicly chastised several foreign defence contractors on Jan. 29 after animated videos circulated online depicting the sinking of Chinese navy vessels. At a routine press briefing, spokesman Jiang Bin said a Swedish firm had already removed its clip and urged other companies to "do the right thing," dismissing the wider phenomenon as "self‑indulgent" and punctuating his rebuke in English with a curt "You wish!".
The spat is notable less for any operational significance than for its symbolic and diplomatic contours. Defence contractors in Sweden, the United States, Britain and Japan increasingly use realistic animations to showcase platforms and scenario-based capabilities to potential buyers and domestic audiences. When those scenarios cast Chinese forces as adversaries, Beijing treats the imagery as a provocation that risks normalizing the portrayal of Chinese assets being attacked.
Jiang’s terse English retort carried an added subtext. He is fluent in English, with academic experience at the PLA Foreign Languages Institute and the University of Birmingham and a background in translation for the Defence Ministry’s international affairs office. The choice to answer in English signalled that Beijing intended the message for both domestic consumption and an international audience — a show of linguistic confidence intended to puncture what it sees as a fashionable but irresponsible marketing trope.
The quick removal of the Swedish clip suggests firms and possibly their host governments are sensitive to Beijing’s reactions. Defence marketing sits at the intersection of commerce, diplomacy and information warfare: what companies present as product demonstrations can be perceived abroad as political gestures or psychological operations. Beijing’s public rebuke thus serves two purposes — to deter future depictions that target Chinese forces and to rally domestic pride by portraying the ministry as defending national dignity.
More broadly, the episode highlights the frayed norms that accompany an increasingly militarised information environment. Animations and social media shorts have become inexpensive, high‑reach tools that blur the line between corporate promotion and state messaging. In contested regions where Chinese and Western interests collide — from the South China Sea to Taiwan — such imagery can inflame public sentiment and complicate diplomatic relations even when no new hardware is deployed.
For defence firms, the incident underlines a practical danger: vivid scenario-based marketing can yield short-term attention but long-term reputational and diplomatic costs. For governments, it raises questions about how to regulate or censure commercial behaviour that has geopolitical fallout. And for Beijing, the response is part of a broader pattern of confronting perceived slights in public, turning cultural and media contests into another front for signalling resolve.