Chinese Web post causes ire in India
- Source: Global Times
- [01:28 August 20 2009]
- Comments
By Liang Chen
While media around the world speculates on the origin of a controversial post on the Web calling for the collapse of India, some media contacted the Global Times with the aim of clarifying the identity of the author of the article.
Lü Wenji, the editor who transferred the article from its previous site, www.club.xilu. com, a forum for public opinion, told the Global Times that she and her colleagues worked hard to find the identity of the writer, but said, “it’s too difficult to verify the identity and credentials, due to the anonymity of the Internet.”
An article written by an Internet user named Zhanlue (which translates as ‘strategy’) on the iiss.cn website last week suggested that India’s sense of national unity was weak and “China can dismember the so-called ‘Indian Union’ with one small stroke!”
Beijing’s best choice is to support separatist forces, such as those in Assam, to split India into 20-30 parts, the comment said.
DS Rajan, the head of the Chennai Centre for Chinese Studies, who circulated an English translation of the article, wrote that “iiss.cn represents the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (www.chinaiiss.org),” and the views were interpreted by the Indian media as meaning the two sites are linked.
“We transferred the post from its previous website, since the click rate of this article on that website was so high,” Lü said.
Kang Lingyi, editor in chief of iiss.cn, insists that he runs a separate research body and that there is “no relationship between the website and the China International Institute for Strategic Studies.”
Kang issued a statement last week saying the site does not represent any government body. Clarification by fax was also sent to the Indian embassy in Beijing.
“Apparently, Indian media has hyped the article to deliberately strain relations between the two countries,” Kang told the Global Times, adding that “the Indian scholar’s accusation that it is a study by a government-run think-tank is ridiculous and irresponsible. Indian media is misleading public opinion.”
Early in January 2006, the same netizen posted the same article on the Internet, headlined, “Starting with Bengal, pull India to pieces.” Many articles with similar content can be found online, Kang said.
Typing the keywords “China can dismember the so-called Indian Union with one small stroke” into popular search engine baidu.com yesterday produced 1,500 search results related to the article.
Hu Shisheng, an expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said, “The article cannot have been written by any Chinese scholar, or any think-tank, not to mention the Chinese government. The argument of this article is too silly.”
Besides, splitting India would not benefit China, and no country in the world has the ability to split prosperous India, Hu added.
“But most Indian elite are hostile to China due to the hype of the ‘China threat theory’ in Indian media, even though senior officials of the two countries have quite a good relationship,” Hu said. Hu also accused the Indian media of misleading the public and triggering the antipathy of India’s general public toward China.
