BanglaBhoot
RETIRED TTA
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Blame the messenger
JUST last month a number of Indian media outlets carried an exciting story about an inflammatory plan by China to build an astronomical observatory in the Aksai Chin, a remote area, neighbouring Ladakh, which is claimed by India. Japan and South Korea had been asked to help on the project. So China was accused of seeking to internationalise its claim to disputed territory. In the narrative of Chinese policy to which Indians have become accustomed by their press, it added another chapter to a familiar, consistent campaign by China to do India down.
It was not true. Wherever the proposed observatory is built, it seems it will not be in the Aksai Chin. For those, like Chinas prime minister, Wen Jiabao, who are inclined to blame the perennial tensions in India-Chinese relations on an alarmist press, this was a prime piece of evidence. Such critics believe the press harps on the strategic tensions between the two huge neighbours, playing down their booming trading relations and convergence on some issues of global concern, such as climate change.
Equally, Indians inclined to fret about Chinas international strategy can look at the views of Chinese bloggers and move from mild concern to panic. In 2009, a Chinese website, calling itself the official-sounding China International Institute for Strategic Studies posted an article (China must break up India) arguing that if China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up into 30 pieces. Indian press duly reported the threat as emanating from an authoritative website, though in fact its origin was an unofficial forum.
In a commendable effort to help bridge this divide, the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore this month convened a workshop on the role of the press in India-China relations. It brought together practitioners and experts from China and India and one foreign journalist (Banyan).
To say there was a meeting of minds would not be honest. The Chinese journalists were frank that their role in bilateral relations was to promote them. The Indians thought their job was to report and analyse them. The foreigner agreed with the Indians. Some consensus was reached, however, in identifying the problems. Far too few Indian reporters are based in Chinajust fourand vice versa. Indian commentary on China tends to be monopolised by a few loquacious hawks, including retired members of the security and intelligence establishment, whose paranoia about China seems to carry especial weight. (See, for example, this warning of a limited border war, or this one on the need to narrow the gap in tactical capabilities with China.)
And, with the burgeoning of the Chinese media, nobody knows any more who speaks for the government. In particular, the Global Times, a newspaper produced out of the Peoples Daily stable, which takes a strongly nationalist and hence sometimes anti-Indian line, could give the Indian press lessons in hawkishness. And the blogosphere remains heavily policed. So the dividing line between outrageous-but-tolerated and officially sanctioned is very blurred.
One point of consensus was that much is the fault of the foreign press, accused of playing up tensions and frictions between China and India, and thereby influencing perceptions in both countries, which are then reflected in the local press. An example cited was the reporting of Indias successful launch in April of an Agni-5 missile. India, as is usual for governments in this position, said the missiles development was not aimed at anyone. Chinas reaction was muted. Yet almost all foreign coverage noted that this put many Chinese cities within range.
For most of the Indian reporters, and the foreigner, this was just useful context. For the Chinese it was subjective and alarmist. Fortunately, no one seemed to have read The Economists coverage, where a comment by Indias prime minister, Manmohan Singh, praising his scientists for adding to the credibility of our security and preparedness, was translated as meaning, roughly, that India might for the first time soon threaten nuclear retaliation on Beijing or Shanghai. Subjective, yes; alarmist, perhaps; but, the foreigner would argue: true.
The same goes, some howlers aside, for much of the Indian presss coverage of China. At a public event in Singapore linked to the workshop, Sunanda Datta-Ray, a distinguished Indian journalist, reminded the audience of an earlier incident over the Aksai Chin, where in the late 1950s China built a road linking Tibet and Xinjiang. Both governments denied the roads existence. It was an Indian newspaper, The Statesman, that proved them wrong. More than half a century later, the Indian press remains paranoid about China, but partly because China gives it a lot to be paranoid about.
India-China relations and the media: Blame the messenger | The Economist
JUST last month a number of Indian media outlets carried an exciting story about an inflammatory plan by China to build an astronomical observatory in the Aksai Chin, a remote area, neighbouring Ladakh, which is claimed by India. Japan and South Korea had been asked to help on the project. So China was accused of seeking to internationalise its claim to disputed territory. In the narrative of Chinese policy to which Indians have become accustomed by their press, it added another chapter to a familiar, consistent campaign by China to do India down.
It was not true. Wherever the proposed observatory is built, it seems it will not be in the Aksai Chin. For those, like Chinas prime minister, Wen Jiabao, who are inclined to blame the perennial tensions in India-Chinese relations on an alarmist press, this was a prime piece of evidence. Such critics believe the press harps on the strategic tensions between the two huge neighbours, playing down their booming trading relations and convergence on some issues of global concern, such as climate change.
Equally, Indians inclined to fret about Chinas international strategy can look at the views of Chinese bloggers and move from mild concern to panic. In 2009, a Chinese website, calling itself the official-sounding China International Institute for Strategic Studies posted an article (China must break up India) arguing that if China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up into 30 pieces. Indian press duly reported the threat as emanating from an authoritative website, though in fact its origin was an unofficial forum.
In a commendable effort to help bridge this divide, the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore this month convened a workshop on the role of the press in India-China relations. It brought together practitioners and experts from China and India and one foreign journalist (Banyan).
To say there was a meeting of minds would not be honest. The Chinese journalists were frank that their role in bilateral relations was to promote them. The Indians thought their job was to report and analyse them. The foreigner agreed with the Indians. Some consensus was reached, however, in identifying the problems. Far too few Indian reporters are based in Chinajust fourand vice versa. Indian commentary on China tends to be monopolised by a few loquacious hawks, including retired members of the security and intelligence establishment, whose paranoia about China seems to carry especial weight. (See, for example, this warning of a limited border war, or this one on the need to narrow the gap in tactical capabilities with China.)
And, with the burgeoning of the Chinese media, nobody knows any more who speaks for the government. In particular, the Global Times, a newspaper produced out of the Peoples Daily stable, which takes a strongly nationalist and hence sometimes anti-Indian line, could give the Indian press lessons in hawkishness. And the blogosphere remains heavily policed. So the dividing line between outrageous-but-tolerated and officially sanctioned is very blurred.
One point of consensus was that much is the fault of the foreign press, accused of playing up tensions and frictions between China and India, and thereby influencing perceptions in both countries, which are then reflected in the local press. An example cited was the reporting of Indias successful launch in April of an Agni-5 missile. India, as is usual for governments in this position, said the missiles development was not aimed at anyone. Chinas reaction was muted. Yet almost all foreign coverage noted that this put many Chinese cities within range.
For most of the Indian reporters, and the foreigner, this was just useful context. For the Chinese it was subjective and alarmist. Fortunately, no one seemed to have read The Economists coverage, where a comment by Indias prime minister, Manmohan Singh, praising his scientists for adding to the credibility of our security and preparedness, was translated as meaning, roughly, that India might for the first time soon threaten nuclear retaliation on Beijing or Shanghai. Subjective, yes; alarmist, perhaps; but, the foreigner would argue: true.
The same goes, some howlers aside, for much of the Indian presss coverage of China. At a public event in Singapore linked to the workshop, Sunanda Datta-Ray, a distinguished Indian journalist, reminded the audience of an earlier incident over the Aksai Chin, where in the late 1950s China built a road linking Tibet and Xinjiang. Both governments denied the roads existence. It was an Indian newspaper, The Statesman, that proved them wrong. More than half a century later, the Indian press remains paranoid about China, but partly because China gives it a lot to be paranoid about.
India-China relations and the media: Blame the messenger | The Economist
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