Beijing’s attempt at humour upsets Indians
China’s main state news agency, Xinhua, has released a video online criticising India in the Doklam dispute that prompted an Indian newspaper to complain of “racist overtones”.
The English- language video, titled 7 Sins of India, accuses the New Delhi Government of illegally entering Chinese territory.
It includes a man portraying an Indian dressed in a turban and false beard.
The video is the latest episode of an online series called The Spark, an English- language online chat show recently launched by Xinhua. not only to emulate China’s economic progress, but also to attract Chinese investment, analysts say. But he found Chinese President Xi Jinping to be an unreliable partner, as China blocked India’s application to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and blocked efforts at the United Nations to declare Pakistani militant Masood Azhar a terrorist.
When China’s sweeping Belt and
The Hindustan Times said the three- minute video has “racist overtones” and “mocked and parodied Indians”.
News portal The Quint said it was “yet another attempt by Chinese media to push its aggressive rhetoric on the standoff ”.
The British- based Sikh Press Association said it was “sad to see just how low Chinese media have stooped in using Sikh identity as a pawn in their state propaganda against India”. It pointed out that Sikhs make up less than 2 per cent of India's population. Road development initiative added an economic corridor through parts of Pakistani- administered Kashmir, a region that India claims, the tensions rose sharply. Modi snubbed a major summit in Beijing that launched the Belt and Road plan this year.
Meanwhile, India alarmed China by allowing the Dalai Lama this year to visit an important Buddhist monastery in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, a region Beijing claims is part of Tibet.
Two months in, a few hundred Chinese and Indian troops remain hunkered down on the plateau — and the threat of violence looms.
Xu Guangyu, a retired PLA major general, said China has been preparing to evict Indian troops if New Delhi does not back down but
The video appears to be an attempt to use humour to win over foreign audiences. It is posted on Twitter and YouTube, both of which the ruling Communist Party tries to block Chinese web surfers from seeing. It accuses Indian forces of trespassing and breaking international law.
“Didn’t your mama tell you, never break the law?” says the host, identified as Dier Wang.
The video includes appearances by a man in a turban, sunglasses and false beard who speaks in an exaggerated Indian accent over canned laughter. hoped that China’s objective could be realised without bloodshed.
“We won’t be the first to fire. We are very clear about this line, and this shows China’s sincerity,” he said. “But it’s not up to China to decide. Whether there is to be war depends on the Indians.
“However, if they fire the first shot, they would lose control and the initiative.” A 10- year- old rape victim whose plea for an abortion was rejected by India’s Supreme Court has given birth to a baby girl in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, a doctor said. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allegedly raped repeatedly by her uncle for several months. The crime came to light when the victim was taken to hospital after complaining of a stomach ache last month. She was found to be over 30 weeks pregnant. On July 28, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea seeking its nod for terminating the 32- week- old pregnancy of the rape survivor after taking note of a medical report that abortion was neither good for the girl nor for the fetus. Last month her parents asked the country’s top court to allow her to have a late- term abortion but the request was turned down. Indian law does not allow medical terminations after 20 weeks unless there is a threat to either the life of the mother or her child. Almost 600 migrants attempting to cross from Morocco to Spain have been rescued in just 24 hours amid a surge in arrivals on what has become the fastest growing sea route to Europe. The Spanish coastguard said that 593 people had been pulled from 15 rafts on Thursday, 424 of them in the Gibraltar Strait and 169 near Alboran, an island outpost midway between Spain and Morocco. The number of migrants arriving in Spain by sea has tripled this year and the International Organisation for Migration has warned that the country could soon overtake Greece as the maritime gateway to Europe. Since the start of this year, more than 8000 migrants have used the MoroccoSpain route, compared with 2500 during the same period last year. The crossing from Libya to Italy, which remains by far the biggest with almost 100,000 arrivals, has seen more than 2000 deaths this year.