Hostile Media-mar-apr2011

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

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INFOCUS | COVER STORY | MEDIA

An Indian news agency quoted him as having said the boundary question has “repeatedly been sensationalized” by the media after which leaders of the two countries have had to “repair the damage and harm.” He exhorted the media to play a more active role in enhancing friendship.

“A good neighbour is a blessing. We must be good neighbours,” Wen stressed.

While the negative aspects of the relationship cannot be wished away, protracted focus on the more positive aspects would eventually pave the way for a more balanced and moderated media view

Rising Nationalism The cause of bad press in both countries is suspicion that essentially stems from rising nationalistic sentiments in both countries coupled with a huge perception gap. Both countries have a painful colonial past, which colours their perceptions. The colonial baggage has not only bad memories but lingering geopolitical legacies. In both countries, the emerging middle class has rediscovered pride in their national achievements and some of this has translated into unbridled nationalism and suspicion of foreign intent. The elite in both countries believe the other is depriving them of territory that rightfully belongs to them.

This is the root of the problem. Its effects are manifold.

Security analyst B. Raman has written extensively on the mutual distrust between the media of the two countries. In one article, he elucidated on the causes of the mistrust, attributing them to three factors: “The lack of transparency about the Chinese media and the widespread perception in India that the Chinese media is still largely owned and/or controlled by the Chinese Government and the Communist Party of China. As a result, anything critical of India appearing in the Chinese media was viewed by large sections of the Indian public as representing the views of the Chinese Government and party.

“The lack of adequate knowledge in China about the free press that India has, barring some radio stations and TV channels run by the Government, there is hardly any government owned or controlled media in India. Large sections of the Chinese public opinion tend to think that the entire Indian media is owned and/or controlled by the Government and the political party in power as is the case in China.

These sections tended to assume that whatever was carried by the Indian media had the approval of the Government. Large sections of the Indian public assumed that the negative coverage of India in the Chinese media was instigated by the Government and party, which may have been or may not have been a fact.

“Many in India believe that the Internet in China is closely controlled by the Government

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and that the negative contents of the blogs have been allowed to appear by the Government.

Otherwise, they would have been erased.

Indian fears about China are, however, not without foundation. There are real underlying issues that fuel distrust. Mohan Guruswamy, Chairman of New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Alternatives, has often spoken about this. In one talk delivered at the Atlantic Council in Washington, he pointed out that “relations between these two neighbours have always been tenuous, riddled with contentious border issues and territorial claims, and made even more muddled by the lack of a clear historical record demarcating the borders. He indicated that the burgeoning border disputes, partly a result of the British Raj’s lack of setting clear borders, were exacerbated by China’s occupation of Lassa in 1962 and then by India’s retaliatory occupation of the Tawang region. Attempts to resolve these

border issues – from China’s package deal offer in 1986 to their revised proposal in 1988 – have proved unsuccessful, and now neither country is willing to further negotiate on their dispute.”

The border dispute in particular has led to a military response from the Indian government, which has responded to Chinese improvements of military infrastructure in Tibet by raising two more mountain divisions, upgrading forward airbases and deploying advanced Sukhoi multirole aircraft in north east India. The Chinese media continues to refer to India’s Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet and claims it is part of China. The other, more favourable aspects of the relationship are often forgotten or glossed over. While the border dispute continues to linger, both countries have restrained their militaries and on the international front the two have occasionally coordinated their stand.

The language of joint declarations between the

two countries has been free of acrimony and each high level meeting has invariably produced tangible results in the form of agreements and joint mechanisms. These have helped facilitate trade, cultural and economic ties between the two countries at the practical level. Yet, these achievements are rarely highlighted.

Pro-active Diplomacy The problem of poor media relations can only be solved by the governments of the two countries, more so because the cause of the problem lies in rising nationalism. Pro-active public diplomacy by Beijing and New Delhi holds the key to the future.

A cue can be taken from improved academic relations between scholars of the two countries. Writing in the Chinese journal, Contemporary International Relations, May/ June 2008 published by the China Institutes

of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), scholar Liu Qian, pointed out that “Academic exchanges between Indian and Chinese IR scholars and among Chinese IR scholars themselves have been institutionalized in recent years. In addition to various academic symposiums and conferences on India organized by some individual universities and research institutions, there has been the annual conference on South Asia Studies hosted by the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, the nation’s largest research organization for the study of the region. To date, IR scholars from China and India have engaged in three roundtable meetings on Sino-Indian relations. As mentioned above, the results of all these research efforts are represented by more than 20 books and 2,000 research papers on India published by Chinese IR scholars since 1994. A large number of these papers can be found in Contemporary

International Relations, Contemporary Asia & Pacific Region, South-Asian Studies and SouthAsian Studies Quarterly, the key national journals of international relations devoted to the study of India and the South Asian region.” This has happened largely due to institutional initiatives.

While the negative aspects of the relationship cannot be wished away, protracted focus on the more positive aspects would eventually pave the way for a more balanced and moderated media view. A major focus could be on economic and business relations. The India-China two-way trade is roaring: from $270m in 1990, it has grown to $60 billion this year and is expected to touch a targeted $200 billion by 2015. Indians have not fully taken advantage of the business opportunities thrown up by China. Indian exports to China still tend to be composed largely of raw materials while imports are manufactured goods. This lopsided relationship can change with greater interaction between the two countries and more open information flows. The media’s role in this cannot but be critical.

One Indian researcher has written about the low level of cultural interaction between the two countries. “There is a need to cultivate individual perceptions of the other, at the level of citizens. This exercise could be executed at the level of greater tourist facilitation measures or exposure to popular culture through mass media. More Indian television programmes, dubbed in Chinese, should be promoted in China (currently only a few such programmes are broadcast in China). Surprisingly, Chinese programming (similar to NHK, DW-Asia or Russia Today) is not even on offer on most satellite networks in India. Events such as the ‘Festival of India in China’ or the ‘Festival of China in India’ should be promoted on a wider scale to involve citizen participation beyond the diplomatic corps.”

One problem is the low level of information and news flows between the two countries.

Only a couple of Indian newspapers have correspondents in China and the same is true of the Chinese. The space devoted in the local media on developments in the other country is miniscule as well. There are few events and exchanges to promote media ties. The Chinese government, despite its bursting coffers, has no outreach programme comparable to that of the United States, Britain or France in India. The Indian government too does not consider it a priority to fund exchanges. All this must change, for, sustained effort by the two governments is the only long term solution to improved media ties. 

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

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