India and China expel each other’s journalists as rivalry escalates

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India and China expel each other’s journalists as rivalry escalates

India and China have effectively booted out each other’s journalists amid reports of the cancellation of a regular summit that would have brought China’s president to Delhi for face-to-face talks.
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India and China expel each other’s journalists as rivalry escalates​

India and China have effectively booted out each other’s journalists amid reports of the cancellation of a regular summit that would have brought China’s president to Delhi for face-to-face talks.


The national flags of India and China. AFP - CHANDAN KHANNA
Text by:Pratap Chakravarty

Beijing threatened to use “appropriate countermeasures” after Delhi last month refused to renew visas of two remaining Chinese state media journalists in India.

They were the last of the official Chinese media in India.

“For a long time Chinese media reporters have suffered unfair and discriminatory treatment in India,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

Mao claimed India shortened visa validity of Chinese reporters “without reason” in 2017 and three years later it rejected applications of media personnel seeking to be based permanently in India.

She alleged Chinese media professionals faced similar discrimination in 2021, a year after ties between China and India plummeted since a deadly border clash in the Himalayas in 2020.

“Faced with this long-term unreasonable suppression by the Indian side, China has no choice but to take appropriate countermeasures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese media,” Mao said.

#China’s government has said the number of Chinese journalists in India was “about to drop to zero”, amid a string of mutual expulsions of journalists by the two countries, reports @ananthkrishnan China says its reporters in India ‘about to drop to zero’ amid mutual expulsions
— The Hindu (@the_hindu) June 1, 2023
Click to expand...

Tit for tat​

Indian journalists in China fared no better as two have not been granted visas to return to Beijing and a third reportedly told his accreditation has been revoked, but he is still in China.

Ananth Krishnan, a reporter for The Hindu newspaper, tweeted just one Indian journalist remained in China.

Mao said the status of Indian journalists would depend on Delhi’s next move as Arindam Bagchi, Indian foreign ministry spokesman, denied the Chinese allegations.

“There are Chinese journalists who have Indian visas for pursuing journalistic activities here (and) so, from that perspective, we don’t see any limitations or difficulties in reporting or doing media coverage,” Bagchi said.

“As regards to Indian journalists working in China, we hope that Chinese authorities would facilitate their continued presence and reporting from China,” he added.

China in 2020 kicked out 13 US journalists at the peak of diplomatic skirmishes between the two superpowers at the start of the pandemic.

Online summit​

And as the “media war” played out, Delhi announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi would chair the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Delhi on Sunday but in a “virtual format.”

Newspapers said the step came as a surprise as SCO heads of states were set to attend the summit physically just like a meeting of their foreign ministers in the Indian state of Goa last month.

With the Ukraine war in a critical stage, China's border aggression against India still continuing and Pakistan's political and economic turmoil worsening, the decision — under India's rotating chairmanship — to hold the SCO Summit in virtual mode from July 4 makes eminent sense. pic.twitter.com/SoS2qJPfBy
— Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) May 30, 2023
Click to expand...
A physical summit would have brought Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping together with Modi amid expectations it would have offered some relief in war-stricken Ukraine.

India has drawn flak for importing Russian oil despite US-led war sanctions on Moscow.

Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi was also expected in Delhi, which has prickly ties with both Beijing and Islamabad over festering border hostilities.

“The leaders of China and Russia are anyway expected to visit India for the G20 summit in Delhi in September," an official said in Delhi.

Military thaw​

However, China and India on Wednesday discussed troop pullout from flashpoints in the Himalayas in a “frank and open manner” and agreed to meet again.

The two militaries agreed to hold fresh talks for “the restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas,” India said.

“Restoration of peace and tranquillity will create conditions for normalising bilateral relations,” it added.

In 1962, China and India fought a brief but a bloody border war. Beijing still claims the entirety of India’s Arunachal Pradesh state as its territory.
 
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www.thetimes.co.uk

China builds bunkers, airfields and missile bases along disputed border with India

China is accelerating its network of underground bunkers and tunnels in disputed territory on the border with India, raising the prospect of a military escalation between the nuclear powers
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk

China builds bunkers, airfields and missile bases along disputed border with India

Both Delhi and Beijing have been deepening their relative footholds in the contested region. Two years ago China’s legislature passed a law which said that authorities should “promote coordination between border defence and social, economic development in border areas”.

Images from the US satellite firm, Maxar, show a new build-up of Chinese infrastructure in another disputed area called Aksai Chin, which is around 40 miles from the border. The photographs show bunkers and tunnels being dug into the hillside, which military experts say are designed to protect Chinese armaments and troops from air attacks by the Indian Air Force.

“Such infrastructure indicates preparations for an eventuality of hostilities,” Rakesh Sharmahe, a retired lieutenant general in the Indian army told the Hindustan Times. He added that China had been creating roads, oil pipelines, communications systems, housing for troops and storage for equipment over the past three years.

Both sides lay claim to territory on either side of the frontier in a dispute that has festered since the countries went to war in 1962. Three years ago tensions flared when Chinese troops crossed the border in eastern Ladakh to seize strategic positions.


Three years ago tensions flared when Chinese troops crossed the border in eastern Ladakh to seize strategic positions.

Soldiers from both sides died in the resulting clashes, bringing India and China the closest they have been to war in almost 70 years. Frequent clashes followed, though with fewer fatalities.

The two sides clashed in June 2020 when Chinese troops crossed the Line of Actual Control to seize strategic positions

GETTY IMAGES

At the recent Brics summit in Johannesburg, an “informal conversation” about the border row took place between India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and President Xi of China. The pair reportedly failed to come to any agreement, with Beijing briefing reporters that Modi had asked for the meeting while Delhi said it was China’s suggestion.

Modi is understood to have told Xi that restoring peace on the border and respecting the LAC was essential for normalising relations. However, this week the border dispute escalated again after Beijing issued a map that included the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin in China.

China claims that Arunachal Pradesh is part of Tibet; in the past it has renamed Indian villages and protested when Indian officials visited the state. China also claims that Aksai Chin (most of which it controls) is Chinese. India has historically considered the region its own.

President Xi, second from left, and Narendra Modi, second from right, had an informal conversation at the Brics summit but did not come to any agreement

EPA

“This is an old habit of theirs,” said Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s minister of external affairs. “Making absurd claims does not make other people’s territories yours.”

The photos and map put Modi under greater pressure from opposition parties, who since 2020 have mocked him for “surrendering” Indian land and “sleeping while China was preparing for war”.

Asaduddin Owaisi, an Indian politician with the Aimim party, said: “China’s preparations on the border should be sending alarm bells within the government. India’s response cannot be weak and timid. We need to stand up to China. But we have a PM who can’t call out China by name and a government that stalls all discussions in parliament on the subject.”

The Indian opposition has urged Modi to rebuke Xi and “expose China’s transgressions” at the G20 meeting

AP

The tensions also threaten to upset India’s hosting of the G20 in September where it is thought Xi will attend. The Congress party has urged Modi to rebuke Xi and “expose China’s transgressions” at the summit.

Retired naval commodore C Uday Bhaskar told The Times that the construction on the border and the map were a clear case of China “raising the temperature for India and Modi in the run-up to G20”.

“India has been firm about wanting a return of the status quo,” said Bhaskar. “There is also the fact that India’s standing is being showcased at G20. This is an attempt to put India on the defensive at the summit.”
 
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