New Delhi based think tank Law and Society Alliance released a study report titled “Mapping Chinese Footprints and Influence Operations in India” on 3rd September in an online event. Several China-related experts participated in an online discussion following the release of the report. The experts discussed how China has bought support for itself among academia, think tanks, media, trade bodies, tech companies, filmdom, and political parties in India to influence public opinion and destabilise the nation from within.
The 76-page Study Report explored the covert and overt influence operations carried out by the Communist Party of China led by Xi Jinping in cultivating, funding, and sponsoring institutions in India, including the media and individual opinion-makers.
Participating in the discussion following the release of the report, exiled World Uyghur Congress Director for Chinese Affairs Department Ilshal Kokbore said that the contents of the report shocked him, as he learnt the deep penetration Communist China had done inside a democratic India.
Speaking from New York, he said that CCP is really adept at twisting reality and spreading propaganda in its favour, not just in India but globally. Ilshal Kokbore said that while CCP-controlled media is hostile towards India, China treats Indians with contempt and views the country as a third world nation. But despite that, China has invested billions of Dollars in India in several sectors, including cinema, technology, Apps makers, fintech firms, edutech companies, and academia.
“China continues to take bolder steps to erode India’s democracy and is also subtly influencing Afghan policies through its support of Pakistani and Afghan extremists,” he said. Kokbore said the report reminded him of Uyghur history when CCP had occupied East Turkistan pretending to offer help, but now is throwing Uyghurs in concentration camps. A similar history has played out in Tibet and is now playing out in Hong Kong, where the Chinese govt is overthrowing democracy, he added.
Sheng Xue, Canadian Coalition Against Communism co-founder and vice president, said that the report shows that some vigilant Indians are standing up against the China’s silent effort to harm India through its fifth column operations. She said that the study report is a wake-up call for democracies around the world against the CCP’s devious designs.
“The report by Law and Society Alliance is convincing evidence as to how invasive China’s influence is and also enables scholars to draw a footprint of Beijing’s propaganda strategy,” she said. Xue further added, “the democratic world must group together to protect itself and fight back against the overt and covert influence operations of CCP.”
New Delhi-based strategic affairs analyst Aarti Tikoo said that the Study Report exhaustively maps CCP’s influence in India, which is much more than what the British had among Indians when they ruled the country. She said that Indian film and entertainment industry will bend over backwards to please China, to the extent of declaring Tibet to be a part of Communist China.
“No one in the mainstream media talks about the ongoing genocide in East Turkestan, called as Xinjiang by CCP, or the plight of the Uyghurs. The insidious way in which the CCP has infiltrated into almost all critical sectors of Indian society is something we as Indians should be wary of,” she said. Tikoo added that almost every major Indian company has received investments from CCP, and are subservient to Beijing’s whims in some shape or form.
Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center Diretor Enghebatu Togochog, said he is one of the unfortunate Mongolians, whose land Southern Mongolia is now under CCP’s occupation. Enghebatu said there is a similarity in China’s operations in India and what had happened in Southern Mongolia 70 years ago.
“China first entered Southern Mongolia proclaiming peace and prosperity, but over the years reduced my country to a mere colony. I want the people of the world democracies to see the example of Southern Mongolia to understand what happened to those who come under CCP’s ‘generosity’,” he added.
Enghebatu said China colonized Southern Mongolia by four means: Economic Control, Population Transfers, Sinicisation and Resources Exploitation. He added that Beijing has moved large population of Han Chinese to Southern Mongolia and reversed the population ratio to five Han Chinese to every Mongolian. “CCP has attacked the Mongolian language and culture. And plundered the natural resources and destroyed the environmental balance and ecology in Sourthern Mongolia,” he said.
Geneva-based The Tibet Bureau’s United Nations Advocacy Officer Kalden Tsomo said the study report captures how entrenched CCP is in India’s key sectors that impact the impressionable young minds. “Beijing is currently attempting to use its current economic might to challenge the prevailing world order. China is attempting to re-write history in order to fit its own narrative. Because of this, the CCP’s point of view on Tibet, Hong Kong and COVID-19 is permeating throughout the world with pliable media platforms playing the amplifier role,” Kalden said.
