Inimitable Chinese Media Offensive

The Doklam stand-off, which shows no signs of respite and continues to occupy the headlines unlike other Chinese incursions have several dubious distinctions to its credit. The current impasse, chronicled to be the longest so far between the two countries by and large is partly scripted, steered, concocted, and exacerbated by the Chinese media. The unprecedented role played by Chinese media in ramping up rhetoric and deftly launching a psychological war against India is imminent. By infamously, queering the narrative assenting to Chinese interests, the media has piquantly positioned China to achieve a logical end to its transgression by launching a tirade of false propaganda. Brahma Chellaney, noted strategic expert opined that Chinese media is employing twin tools of deception and propaganda to corner India. Through steady escalation of the propaganda, China aims to pressurize India into withdrawing troops from Doklam and eventually have its way with India, without firing a single shot. Vainly, assuring the world of its “peaceful rise” China slowly developed an intricate network that could augur well with its expansionist zealotry.

Ironically, China which relies on official censorship and employs 2 million people to safeguard the huge fire wall has invested heavily in building a robust state media. The apparent rise of Chinese state media and its imminent power projection became more reverberant with its deplorable remarks of US presidential elections. Chinese state media’s insinuating digs at democratic values after the Brexit polls and renewed appeal to push and project communist agenda reaffirmed its motives. Besides, projecting itself an emerging super power, Beijing was eternally inclined to portray Communism as an attractive option. At a time when ordinary masses in China are grappling for a breather of freedom of expression, Beijing is developing an extensive network of propaganda machinery to influence the public opinion of the World.

Ever since the Doklam stand-off, raucous war-mongering narrative of Chinese media has intensified several-fold. The slow but steady escalation of the psychological war of China is evident from the series of the outliers propagated by Global Times and Xinhua, the prime Chinese media networks. Besides repeatedly intimidating India by referring to huge differences in GDP numbers, the Global Times has claimed that Indian foreign minister was wrong. It accused Sushma Swaraj of lying to Parliament and warned India of dire consequences. It added that “First, India’s invasion of Chinese territory is a plain fact. New Delhi’s impetuous actions stun international community. No other country will support India’s aggression. Second, India’s military strength is far behind that of China. If the conflict between China and India escalates to the intensity where their row has to be resolved through military means, India will surely lose”. Periodical allusions to 1962 war while eclipsing China’s infringement of mutually agreed terms of maintaining status quo at the trijunction clearly reflects duplicity of Chinese media. For all the claims of saber-rattling, indicating that Beijing is moving all the military hardware and ammunition to Tibet, Indian intelligence reports confirmed that there wasn’t any such movement. Clearly, the orchestrated war-mongering is one of strategic features of China’s psychological war. Beijing’s high-handedness in the trijunction has been an attempt to force India into subordination. On one hand, despite being the aggressor, China is playing the victim card and on the other hand, China is flexing military muscles.

Perpetual muscle flexing of China is becoming more rampant now. Last week, China dispatched troops to Djibouti, its first overseas military base. The Peoples Liberation Army Airforce (PLAAF) flew six Xian H-6K long range bombers over Miyako Strait, located between Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa. Justifying its action, Chinese Ministry of Defense said that it was “legal and proper” for the PLAAF for operate and there should be “no cause for alarm or speculation” and said Japan “should not make fuss about nothing or over interpret, it will be fine once they get used to it”. Similarly, Beijing has sent H-6 bombers, Y-8 electronic intelligence aircraft and Y-8 jammer air craft that flew close to Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ). When Taiwanese published the pictures of the Chinese jets, Chinese defence ministry asserted that Taiwanese people should “remain at ease”. Interestingly, while China alleged that tri-nation Malabar exercises off the Indian Ocean as a threat to regional security and targeted China, it has kicked-off military exercises with Russia in the Baltic Sea. In reply to China-Russia drill, Global Times remarked that “NATO shouldn’t worry as China is a rare gentle rising power” Under the façade of soft diplomacy, China is mastering the art of twisting the narratives in its favor.

With the West, struggling to wade through myriad short falls of democracy, China is trying to espouse its ideologies across the World. Soft power push which was initiated by President Hu Jintao in 2007, received an unprecedented support from President Xi, who even before taking power at the 17^th Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared that national goal is to “build our country into a socialist cultural superpower”.  In 2014, Xi openly announced that “we should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s messages to the World”. Concomitantly, new slogans like “Chinese dream”, “Asia-Pacific Dream”, “The silk road economic belt”, “the 21^st century maritime silk road” were coined and entire Chinese machinery was mobilized to reach these goals. Henceforth a $10 billion annual budget was allocated to strengthen the Chinese media network. Thus, Chinese government effectively unveiled the process of indoctrination of the World with newest Chinese narratives. With this, China besides controlling the inflow of information into its territory began largely manipulating the perceptions of World towards the Middle Kingdom. The Chinese media’s prime censor and media watch dog State Council Information Office (SCIO), coordinated all propaganda activities. Unlike other countries which are against propaganda, China strongly believes in this mantra and takes pride in managing the propaganda networks. Principal organs of this government operated media include- Xinhua, China Central Television (CCTV), China Radio International, People’s Daily Website and Qingdao Publishing Group which relentlessly strive to change the discourse. This strategy works in tandem with the selective censorship of media networks that are critical to China.

Besides, media another realm that was employed to push Chinese narrative has been through educational institutions, which include establishing Confucius Institutes in reputed Western Universities. First Confucius Institute was opened in South Korea in 2004. As of now, 475 centers are operating in 120 countries. But slowly these institutes are drawing flak and professors in US and Canada are now calling for close down on the grounds of undermining “academic freedom”. Incidentally all countries are known to foster their cultural identities like China which included countries like Japan, Germany, France, Britain and US through government funded institutes. But Confucius Institutes earned the infamous reputation of promoting the Communist party ideology at the behest of decrying Dalai Lama, Falun Gong and for condemning the Tiananmen massacre. China’s obfuscation and censorship made nations supremely skeptical of its institutes. Months before China hosted G-20 summit last year, Alibaba Group took over the South China Morning Post Group operating from Hongkong catering to English readers to portray a favorable opinion of China. Around the same period, China signed six agreements with Australian media outlets.  Consequently, the Fair Fax media of Australia strongly affirmed Chinese claims over the Scarborough Islands and published full length articles titled “Manila has no leg to stand on”.

In an article about Chinese push for soft diplomacy David Shambaugh mentioned that think-tanks like China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, the China Institute of International Studies and Shanghai Institute of International Studies, serve dual functions of promoting the government narratives. Though it may be argued that think-tanks in other countries are generously funded by governments but Chinese institutes double up as conduits for selling ideologies of government. Now Chinese millionaires are funding private institutes that can project a glorious picture of China to outside world to boost up investment credentials in other parts of globe. Together, China through massive financial investments in propaganda machinery, education tools and academic citations is aiming to present an exceptionally warm image of China exculpating the excesses of the authoritarian regime. Clearly, Pew Research Centre’s Global Attitudes Project of 2017, suggested that the huge investments of China in soft diplomacy is yielding mixed results. While majority still view US as the top global economic superpower, China leads US in Australia by a margin of two-to-one. This in part can be attributed to overwhelming Chinese influence over Australian media. Ironically, for all its massive investments in Latin American and African countries, China’s favorability rating is pretty low. While there is an improvement in perceptions towards China in European countries (perhaps !!! spurred by poor confidence towards Trump), EU’s decision to review anti-dumping laws and reinvestigating burgeoning Chinese investments indicate otherwise.

But now as it emerges, Chinese media is clearly shifting the goal posts in Doklam stand-off and attempting to bring India to its heels by making insidious and undiplomatic remarks. Through reprehensible remarks on Hindu nationalism, dubitable apprehensions on Sikkim merger issue, threatening of domestic unrest and capricious references to NSA chief Ajit Doval, Chinese media is intimidating India. While India has been fervently pitching for peace talks to resolve the deadlock, ahead of Indian NSA visit to Beijing, Global Times is blowing discordant chimes. Warning India the daily said, “it is never too late for India to mend its way” and reiterated, “New Delhi should give up its illusions, and Doval’s Beijing visit is most certainly not an opportunity to settle the standoff in accordance with India’s will” and added that “As Doval is believed to be one of the main schemers behind the current border stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops, the Indian media is pinning high hopes on the trip to settle the ongoing dispute”. Clearly, the bellicose posturing of China is clearly reflected in the reckless remarks of its media.

China is waging a full blown psychological war on India. Meanwhile, the cult of Chinese apologists in India are discrediting New Delhi for its stand. Against all odds, India is not showing any signs of wilting. India must firmly hold its ground, for its strategic security interests and its regional influence is at stake. While India is poised to give a bloody nose to China at Doklam plateau, minor security lapse along any stretch of the Indo-China border can entail a huge damage to India.