[An official social media post contrasting Beijing’s successes with its neighbor’s coronavirus woes drew a backlash from some, who called it callous.]
The
image was quickly taken down by the Communist Party-run news service
that posted it. But it has lingered as a provocative example of a broader theme
running through China’s state-run media: Official channels and online outlets
often celebrate the country’s success in curbing coronavirus infections, while
highlighting the failings of others. Other comparisons in recent months include
depicting crowds of shoppers or jubilant partygoers in China versus desolate streets and anti-lockdown protests abroad.
The example contrasting China with
India was posted on Saturday on Weibo, a popular social media service, by a
news service of the ruling party’s powerful law-and-order commission. The post
drew a backlash from internet users who called it callous, and it was taken
down on the same day.
But it has kindled debate in China
about attitudes toward India, and the tensions between Beijing’s nationalist
rhetoric at home and its efforts to promote a humbler, more humane image
abroad.
The controversy created an unusual
rift between two of China’s most voluble nationalist media pundits. Hu Xijin,
the chief editor of The Global Times, an influential party newspaper, condemned
the post for damaging China’s standing in India, while Shen Yi, an academic in
Shanghai, derided critics with a coarse term that means something like “pearl
clutchers.”
“Can so-called expressions of
sympathy for India achieve the anticipated outcome?” Mr. Shen said in one of his online
responses to Mr. Hu. China, he suggested, should be more relaxed about
flexing its political muscle. “Where can an 800-pound gorilla sleep?” he wrote.
“Wherever it wants to.”
Chinese leaders have expressed
sympathy and offered medical help to India, and the controversy may soon pass.
But it has exposed how swaggering Chinese propaganda can collide with Beijing’s
efforts to make friends abroad.
“You’ve had this growing tension
between internal and external messaging,” said Mareike
Ohlberg, a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund in
Berlin who studies Chinese propaganda. “They have an increasing number of
interests internationally, but ultimately what it boils down to is that your
primary target audience still lives at home.”
The Chinese news outlet that put
out the image is among a plethora of party-backed media operations that have
stepped up efforts to promote government policies, burnish the image of the top
leader Xi Jinping, and hit back against foreign critics of the Communist Party.
In principle, the online operations
answer to the Communist Party’s Department of Propaganda and its legions of
censors. In practice, the outlets may buck at constraints as they compete to
demonstrate their dedication and influence, Ms. Ohlberg said. The demand for
images and reports that draw a big public following “incentivizes people to put
out messages that grab attention rather than smooth things over
diplomatically,” she said.
Officials at the Chinese Foreign
Ministry have also increasingly put out tweets, social media posts and speeches
that vigorously defend Beijing, especially against Western criticisms of the
government’s draconian policies in the far western region of Xinjiang and
the crackdown
in Hong Kong. This combative style, widely described as “wolf warrior”
diplomacy, has won praise at home, but drawn anger abroad.
In France, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador to
Paris in April last year after his embassy’s website wrote that French nurses
had abandoned residents in nursing homes, a claim the government denied.
In Australia, Prime Minister Scott
Morrison held
a news conference late last year to demand an apology from China after
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, posted a doctored image on
Twitter that depicted an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an
Afghan child.
India and China also exchanged
bitter criticisms last year after their troops fought on a disputed
border, leading
to deaths of soldiers on both sides. But Mr. Xi and Prime Minister
Narendra Modi of India quickly doused those tensions, and last week, Mr.
Xi expressed condolences over India’s latest outbreak.
China has recently offered to send medical support, including
speeding up orders of oxygen equipment.
Despite the friendly diplomatic
gestures, India is widely regarded in China as an example of the flaws of
democratic systems, said Zhiqun Zhu, a professor at Bucknell University in
Pennsylvania who has studied China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats.
India’s image as a poorer, unruly
country was sometimes used in China to “defend a more centralized and
authoritarian rule,” he wrote by email. He added, “Many Chinese believe that
India has joined the West to counter China’s rise in recent years.”
Under normal circumstances, the
Chinese social media post would have provoked public anger in India. But many
Indians are preoccupied with the crisis, said Madhurima Nundy, assistant
director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in Delhi who is an expert on
public health.
“There is too much happening now in
India which is distressing, so the primary anger is directed towards the
government” in Delhi, Dr. Nundy said. “The anger and distrust that emerged last
year against China, because of Covid and compounded by border tensions, has
dissipated in light of the present crisis.”
Chris Buckley is chief China
correspondent and has lived in China for most of the past 30 years after
growing up in Sydney, Australia. Before joining The Times in 2012, he was a
correspondent in Beijing for Reuters. @ChuBailiang