Hostile Media-mar-apr2011

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INFOCUS | SURVEY | COVER STORY

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Hostile Media

FOURTH COLUMNISTS Sustained effort by the two governments is the only long term solution to improved media ties.

|20| India-China Chronicle  January-February 2011

he Indian and Chinese media it would appear are at a state of constant war. Thus, when Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh visited a string of African countries this May to improve relations and hammer out a string of business agreements, the Indian media hailed it as an offensive to counter China, which was seen as trying to conquer and dominate that part of the world. Similarly, when news of the Chinese building an oil terminal in Myanmar surfaced, it was interpreted as yet another Chinese attempt to encircle India. China’s funding of the Pakistani deep sea port at Gwadar has of course been a bugbear for many years now. Every report of China taking up a major project in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or the Maldives sets the alarm bells ringing in India media establishments. The Chinese, it would seem, are coming to get us. In China too, the media is often hysterical when it comes to reporting on India. The many contentious issues between the two countries include Tibet, Arunachal border dispute, the stapled Visa issue, Kashmir, nuclear assistance to Pakistan and more recently the presence of Chinese troops in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The Chinese media believes that the Indian government has secretly been helping secessionists (called split-ists in China) in Tibet and illegally holding on to Arunachal Pradesh. The Indians believe that China is hell bent on grabbing Indian territory through military means and has been helping Pakistan in order to keep Indian ambitions in check. There can be no denying the media hostility. One commentator, writing in the Left wing Indian weekly Mainstream, protested: “The language used to describe India-China bilateral relations by the media of the two countries is so very different that one sometimes wonders if they are talking of the same thing. The Indian media has been suggesting that whatever activities China was conducting around were dangerous and detrimental to India.” The Chinese have often voiced their discomfort with the Indian media. Wang Hui writing in the China Daily warned that “the Indian side needs to show real sincerity in forging a more friendly relationship with China. An “Asia century” will remain only a dream until the two Asian giants can treat each other with mutual trust and respect.” Prof Hu Shisheng, the Deputy Director of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, speaking at Columbia University in the United States, placed the blame of poor relations “mainly on Indian shoulders, pointing to Indian fears of China’s growing power and

influence as the root of the trust deficit between the two countries. “China is perceived negatively by people in India,” he said. “While there is contact and dialogue at the higher levels, there is very limited people-to-people cooperation,” Hu explained. This, according to him, has led to a heightened sense of fear and insecurity among the people of India. He also said that while the Chinese media rarely reports on India, Indian media regularly depicts China in a negative manner, and this has contributed to their fear and insecurity.” Even Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his displeasure of the Indian media during his New Delhi visit in December last year. He appeared particularly perturbed by Indian press reports on the visit’s failure to arrive on any breakthrough in the border disputes. Wen said that “not a single shot had been fired” nor had there been any “exchanges in border areas” between the troops.

Indranil Banerjie is an independent political and security risk analyst

March-April 2011  India-China Chronicle |21|


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