NEW DELHI: A study by a Delhi-based think tank has warned that China is secretly infiltrating and targeting key instruments of India’s soft power, such as Bollywood, taking over video and entertainment platforms, influencing journalists, all with the aim of building a pro-China lobby in the country.
In a 76-page report titled Mapping Chinese Footprints and Influence Operations in India, the Law and Society Alliance argues that Beijing’s economic muscle is being used to buy influence through stealth. The Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF) is a case in point. It is handled by the Propaganda Department of China’s Communist Party (CCP) that regulates all screen content. The BIFF even saw a ‘China-India Film Co-Production Dialogue’ where several prominent faces from Bollywood including Shahrukh Khan and Kabir Khan took part. Apparently, certain joint production ventures for films have already been signed, which means nothing which shows up China in a negative light (even it is is factual), will be allowed.
China is also making inroads into India’s video and entertainment platforms, for example Gaana, the giant commercial music service. China’s internet giant Tencent invested over $115 million in Gaana and popular entertainment app MX Player. What’s creating even more waves is the attempted acquisition of Hungama. The report points out that the China-based multinational giant Xiaomi led a $25-million investment in Hungama Digital Media Entertainment – an aggregator, developer, distributor, and publisher of Bollywood films. Hungama has partnerships with over 700 content creators and offers over 8,000 movies.
“China has made deep inroads through a combination of methods ranging from financial investments as seen in the entertainment industry to spreading propaganda in the socio-political realm through Confucius Institutes and establishment of think-tanks in an attempt to covertly influence important policy decisions and shape the Indian discourse to suit its interests,” warns the report.
One of the think-tanks the report is referring to is the India-China Economic and Cultural Council (ICECC). The report claims that this think-tank has been funded by Beijing “to build an outreach campaign to influence Indian opinion leaders.”
Notable is ICECC’s attempt to influence the visitor through its in house magazine the India-China Chronicle. A note by its editor Mohammed Saqib on the Covid-19 pandemic, claimed that China had been acting with a “high sense of responsibility for global health security.” Saqib then argues that “China has maintained close cooperation with the World Health Organisation and other international partners and will continue to share information on the virus and epidemic in a timely manner.”
These remarks were published in the November-December issue of the magazine in 2019, coinciding with the first cases of the pandemic from Wuhan. The magazine also carried a cover story on BRI in its March-April 2019 issue but as the report notes, “unlike other editions of the magazine, the link of that specific edition of March-April 2019 has now been disabled.”
While the report believes the ICECC’s role is suspect it argues that there are other more disturbing trends to take note of. “The organisational documents of ICECC revealed that the addresses of the respective Beijing and New Delhi offices were the same as that of another Chinese organisation Bureau of Research on Industry & Economic Fundamentals (BRIEF), which is also meant for covert operations in India.”
Coming to Saqib, the report says his background bears close scrutiny as he has consistently argued for pro-China trade policies. “Saqib is remarkably close to the Chinese Embassy in Delhi and is in regular touch with its officials. During calls for economic decoupling with China, he strongly advocated that ‘blanket high tariff to discourage Chinese imports won’t be good for India,’” it says.
Sheng Xue, Canadian Coalition Against Communism co-founder and vice president, said the report was a wake-up call for democracies around the world against the CCP’s designs. “The report by Law and Society Alliance is compelling evidence as to how invasive China’s influence is and also enables scholars to draw a footprint of Beijing’s propaganda strategy,” she said adding that “the democratic world must group together to protect itself and fight back against the overt and covert influence operations of CCP.”
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