Breathing Fire

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of Singapore had organized on July 2 and 3, 2010, an India-China Dialogue on “the Role of the Media in India-China Relations”. 

An explanatory note of the School available on its web site says: 

“Despite the massive growth of bilateral trade between China and India, tensions over territorial and political issues have also grown, particularly in the last year. While some sources of stress are real, their effects are mediated and often inflamed by media depictions and perceptions of these tensions. Moreover, circumstances may also arise where the media tend to downplay more positive aspects of the relationship. In a situation where the Chinese and Indians have limited knowledge of each other and the interactions are dominated by strategic and business concerns, the media can play a constructive role in promoting mutual understanding among the general public. This first colloquium in the India-China Dialogue series seeks to answer some of these questions about the role of the media in India-China relations. It brings together representatives from the media and other areas to discuss pertinent issues and seeks alternatives to these path-dependent approaches. The speakers will discuss different aspects of image production and reception of these two large and varied nations, the different areas of competition and convergence as covered by the media, and the role of media in geo-politics, cultural relations, diplomacy, etc. Are the media in India and China really responsible for creating misperceptions and an adversarial image of each other? Are journalists in the two countries trained and qualified to cover the other country? What are the differences between the Indian media’s coverage of China and the Chinese media’s reporting on India? Are there alternative avenues for presenting information to the general public.”

This subject assumed importance last year following an escalation of mutual demonisation in the print, electronic and online media of the two countries. In the case of India, the escalation was more pronounced in the electronic and online media than in the print media. In China, the escalation was more marked in the print and online media than in the electronic media. China has not yet seen the kind of explosive growth in 24-hour private news channels that India has and it has no privately-run indigenous news channels. In India, the problem of uncontrolled demonisation of China was seen largely in the 24-hour news channels, which merrily lapped up anything critical of China said or written by anybody and organized discussions which tended to be over-dramatic and occasionally even hysterical..

In China, the demonisation of India was largely seen in the Chinese language print media and in the thousands of blogs which have come up in the country following the phenomenal growth of the Internet. Most of the blog contents was in the Chinese language. Since there are very few Chinese language experts in India, the majority of the negative articles and postings about India did not get translated and circulated. Only some were. If more of them had been translated and disseminated to Indian readers, the alarm caused in India would have been more.

In India, what appeared to be unbridled criticism of China was largely in the English media. The Indian language media, which has more readership and viewership than the English media, did not show the same interest in China and was not as negative about China as was the English media.

The analysis of these demonizing articles in the two countries tended to get distorted due to the following reasons:

• 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. Thus we had a situation in which large sections of the Chinese public assumed that the negative coverage of China in the Indian media was at the instance of the government, which was not a fact. 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 claim that the media landscape in China has changed and that everything that appears in the media does not necessarily represent the views of the government and party. The Indian public, except those belonging to the leftist parties, is not prepared to accept this.
• Many in India believe that the Internet in China is closely controlled by the government and that the negative contents of the blogs have been allowed to appear by the government. Otherwise, they would have been erased.

The consequent distortions in the analysis of the reports and writings in the media of the two countries almost led to a war of words between analysts, journalists and TV anchors of the two countries. Fortunately, the two governments had a better understanding of the state of affairs and put a stop to this self-feeding rhetoric. The campaign of mutual demonisation has declined. But there is still a lot of criticism of each other, which is more due to the low level of trust between the civil societies of the two countries due to historical reasons than due to any malign reasons.

This may please be read in continuation of the following two articles written by Mr D.S.Rajan, Director, Chennai Centre For China Studies:

• The Tricky Business of Watching Chinese Media, dated October 12, 2009.
• China: Nationalistic Blogs Raise New Issues Concerning Sino-Indian Border, dated December 23, 2009.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies.