Every classroom has a student who does all the mischief but blames others when caught to hide their own faults. If the world were a classroom, China would be the kid who always points to others to hide its own failings. But the question is why China always has to shift its blame on others? Well, the answer is to keep its citizens distracted. China, being a communist state, fears public resentment that could lead to another Tiananmen Square situation. The CCP can not afford another Tiananmen square, especially when the entire world is standing up to its evil deeds. The Communist Party of China (CCP) just can’t bear the heat from outside and within.
The sole reason why CCP built a great firewall is to isolate its citizens from the world. It helps Communist party to distract and deceive its citizens and peddle its own propaganda. By blocking the truth, the CCP succeeds in selling its lies to its people and hiding its own faults. And what’s the best way to hide your fault? It’s a no-brainer. The best way is to shift the blame, make someone else the bad guy, and pretend to be a saint.
On numerous occasions, China attempted to conceal its own failings by pointing out the ills of other countries, particularly those with which it is at odds. India is engaged in a border conflict, giving China a bloody nose, and makes it to the top of the list. India, whether in Doklam or in Ladakh, always stood up to China and gave the CCP a global embarrassment. Therefore, it’s natural for China to project India in a bad light to manipulate public sentiments in its favor.
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Here Are Some Instances When China Tried To Hide Its Failings By Pointing Out Ills In India.
POINTING OUT INDIA TO SUPPRESS AIRCRAFT CRASHES
- On June 20, 2022, a Chinese air force fighter jet, J-7, crashed into houses during a training mission in central China, killing one person on the ground and injuring two others. To hide the recklessness of its pilots, China, through controlled media, started highlighting Indian incidents to distract the public and somehow suppress the accident. It is to be noted that the Chinese government is under tremendous pressure due to increasing accidents involving its aircraft. China’s civil aviation industry has come under scrutiny in recent months following the still-unexplained crash of a China Eastern Airlines passenger jet on March 21 in which all 132 people on board were killed. According to US reports, this crash may have been deliberate.
- On May 12, 2022, a Tibet Airlines flight with 122 people on board was departing from the southwestern city of Chongqing when it veered off the runway and caught fire. No one was killed, but several passengers sustained minor injuries. Several countries, like Australia and Canada, have recently raised concerns about reckless flying by Chinese pilots.
- To hide its own faults and to somehow distract the public, China over-emphasized a trainer plane crash in Uttar Pradesh. Surprisingly, this news wasn’t even covered by many news outlets in India as there was no causality involved, and was due to some technical fault, but due to the skills of the pilot, he escaped a major accident. It is clearly evident that China deliberately made a minor incident in India into a big deal just to hide its own folly and distract its public.
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HIGHLIGHTING INDIA TO HIDE FLOOD CRISIS
- In June, 2022, heavy rain flooded more than 10 cities in the Shandong province of China. The flood impacted the lives of millions of people in Shandong, China’s 2nd most populous province.
- Moreover, a similar situation occurred in the southern and eastern regions, including Guangdong, Guangxi, and Jiangxi. According to reports, some 85 rivers nationwide have experienced floods above the warning level. Authorities in Guangdong said on Monday that more than 200,000 people have been evacuated over the course of the disaster, and that the damage so far is estimated at 1.7 billion yuan ($254m). The evacuees were among almost 480,000 people affected by the rains and floods, according to the officials. About 145,000 people have been evacuated from areas in Guangxi, while 2,700 houses have collapsed. Nearly 500,000 people have been affected, and 433,000 hectares (1,070,000 acres) of cropland have been damaged, according to local authorities. And in neighboring Fujian, more than 220,000 people have been evacuated since the beginning of this month because of floods.
FLOOD SITUATION IN ZHENGZHOU, CHINA’S SPONGE CITY.
- This was a very embarrassing situation for China, as the CCP always boasted about its flood tackling measures and initiatives. One such initiative was called the “Sponge City Project”. China launched its sponge city project in 2015 with 16 pilot cities. Another 14 were added the next year. The move was a response to increased flooding in Chinese cities following the country’s rapid urbanization. But even this initiative failed miserably last year when floodwater submerged the city of Zhengzhou, in China’s central Henan province. Zhengzhou’s flood defenses washed away cars, swamped ground-floor shops, and inundated the subway transit line. Over 300 people died in the deluge. This was yet another embarrassment for CCP as this was a city of 10 million that was supposed to be a model for floodwater management called Sponge City.
CHINESE MEDIA ON FLOODS IN INDIA.
- To hide its own failure to control floodwater runoff, China again started to point out flood instances in India. This was done to create a narrative that China is not alone and, in fact, better than others. As usual, China used its entire state media machinery and flooded its media space with news regarding floods in India. All these articles and news outlets emphasized how poor Indian infrastructure and flood tackling measures are as compared to China. All these attempts to whitewash their own failings were made for public consumption and to give themselves a clean-chit.
POINTING OUT INDIA TO COVERING UP LOSSES IN BUILDING COLLAPSE
- On April 29, 2022, a 6-story building collapsed in the Wangcheng District, Changsha, Hunan Province, China. This resulted in the deaths of 53 people. It took local authorities more than a week to complete search and rescue activities. Building collapses are widespread in China, owing to lax safety regulations and corruption among enforcement officers. In January, a building in Chongqing was destroyed by an explosion caused by a suspected gas leak, killing more than a dozen people. In June 2021, a gas explosion in a Shiyan residential compound claimed the lives of twenty-five people. An increase in the number of collapses of self-built buildings in recent years has prompted Chinese President Xi Jinping to call for additional checks to uncover structural weaknesses. Poor adherence to safety standards, including the illegal addition of extra floors and failure to use reinforcing iron bars, is considered to be the main reason for such disasters. Decaying infrastructure such as gas pipes has also led to explosions and collapses.
CHINESE MEDIA ON BUILDING COLLAPSE IN INDIA
- Again, as usual, the Chinese Communist Party needed a scapegoat to hide its own inefficiency , corruption, and poor infrastructure. That’s when India came into the picture. As soon as public sentiments started rising against the government, Chinese state-controlled media started peddling similar news regarding India. The primary reason was to somehow calm public resentment and portray that such incidents are more common in other countries. China flooded its media with reports of building collapses in India. This also included the Mumbai building collapse that resulted in the deaths of 14 people and injured 13 others. In these articles, Chinese media tried to portray Indian infrastructure as poor and buildings as unreliable, especially in its financial capital. All this was done to malign the image of India’s financial capital and to cover up its own failings.
CONCLUSION
These are examples of how the Communist Party of China distracts its own people by pointing fingers at others. Passing the blame is the classic communist practice to hide their own failings and portray others as bad guys. This strategy helps the Communist party in two ways: first, it helps them to cover up their own mess. Secondly, it helps them to manufacture an artificial image of their adversaries in the minds of the general public.
Through state-controlled media, China is easily able to manipulate the views of its citizens and instill a worldview that is in line with that of the communist party. After the border clash China used every trick in the book to instil in its citizens a sense of pseudo-nationalism and hatred for India. By pointing out India, they try to create a negative image of India so that they can garner public support against India. Recently, the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) conducted a survey in China. In their survey, it was revealed that India is the 2nd most hated country after the USA, surpassing Japan, which has been a mortal enemy of China since World War II. This is how nefariously the Communist Party of China manipulates its public sentiments as per its own convenience through the media.
