“Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” In the world of social media where thoughts are flaky and opinions fragile, the dynamics of politics revolve at a single click. Gone are the days when tanks and troops were the biggest weapons possessed by a nation. Talk of today, it’s keyboard and a cheap internet connection.
To start with the Indo-China rivalry will only be beating around the bush. Each nation has its own issues to deal with. Some have extremism, others border issues or gun violence, to each its own. When Pakistan’s Kashmir agenda went for a toss, they resorted to project Khalistan to align with their ‘to bleed India with a thousand cuts objective. Pakistan being a poorly deprived state has a master to obey to. The master in the name of breeding and fostering has its own agenda to flourish, to counter its age-old rival-India.
Thus, an analysis was undertaken to map the influence of Chinese across social media on the burning issue of Khalistan, their views, involvement and methods in use.
Opinions of a layman aren’t shaped in a day, it takes consistent efforts, meticulous strategy and narrative-building. If a layman would read this blog posted on Zhihu, popular Chinese social networking platform, he would perceive it as a mere description of a gurdwara and a temple but if you read between the lines, you would immediately know the implied agenda. Someone who would be reading to know about the Sikh gurdwara and the Hindu temple for the first time, would deduce the latter as a regressive religious institution built on assumptions and phantasma where Hindu gods are portrayed as decremental almost equivalent to fanaticism and vulgarity.
The description in the image below of holy shrine of Hindus will suffice the sentiments put forth. Notably, the blog post has been deleted now by the author. The author claims to be a travel enthusiast who shares her experience of travelling and exploring.
Various Khalistani protests and rallies are a common sight across social media. To search across Facebook, one such rally was covered by a Chinese account whose comment section was flooded by ‘Long Live Khalistan!’ slogans by Chinese in Mandarin. Not one such video but several of these videos were pushed by Chinese accounts accompanying instigating captions.
The attempts have been made through subtle language modulation and portraying India as the oppressor. For instance, take the headline attached below on the Wikipedia definition of the Khalistan movement in Mandarin. The DEK clearly states the term “independence from Indian colonization” despite knowing the fact that no community have been ‘colonized’ in India. The same wikipedia article has ben copy pasted to various other platforms as well.
The affects of such attempts are visible among the Chinese masses who are eager to break India along religious fault lines. The comment section of a post on Sikhism on Toutiao is an apt example of it.
Interestingly, a Pakistani media portal- Baaghitv which predominantly runs in Urdu also covers news pertaining to China in Mandarin. Analysing the articles on Khalistan covered by the portal, it was found that the piece was filled with misinformation claiming that Hindus in Canada have vowed to make India a Hindu nation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule. The articles are filled with quotes of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun with exaggerated numbers and tall claims. Imagine a Pakistani author writing in Chinese for Khalistan! The Twitter account of Chinese Baaghi Tv has only a handful of followers and yet the handle has deleted the tweets on Khalistan which they have earlier tweeted while posting the ‘news.’
What’s more interesting is that Pakistanis have been deliberately writing in Mandarin on Twitter. The content is actively instigating and in support of the Khalistan movement.
Not only Pakistanis, but Khalistani Twitter accounts associated with US-based Sikhs For Justice have been tweeting mostly anti-India and anti-Modi content in Mandarin. The X handle 5River Tv Network engages with bogus Khalistani accounts and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
There have been outright plans to break India through the Sikkim and Khalistan movements, following the age-old ideology of ‘breaking India through a thousand cuts.”
On March 16, 2021, a Chinese tech-company published a blog on 360.cn titled “针对印度锡克教分离主义运动的攻击活动”which translates to “Attacks against Sikh separatist movement in India”. The article claims that several hacking and phishing attempts have been made to attack the application of Sikh Referendum. The same article was quoted by various Pakistani media portals stating that India have been attacking the online application of Sikh Referendum. Ironically, not many know but 360.cn was developed by Qihoo, a Beijing-based community search company. There have been always controversy surrounding Qihoo and its 360 security suite, such as reporting other anti-virus software and search tools as being malicious (reference) and doing QQ (IM/chat) session hijacking. Within the past year of Qihoo going public, there have been further controversies — including reports of the company spying, hacking, and leaking data. And then there are the rumours that 360 software includes spyware- and that they have affiliations with PRC Gov’t to track, monitor, and police user’s online activity. McAfee marks the site and its affiliates as bad- containing spyware. It also shows an affiliation with a Chinese Gov’t site: miibeian.gov.cn (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Department)
The blog post could be accessed at: https://blogs.360.cn/post/Attack-on-Sikh-separatist-movement.html but one has to be cautious while opening the link as it isn’t secure and flagged by browser for tracking the user information.
Chinese media outlets have been overly enthusiastic in covering rallies and protests abroad by Sikhs for Justice and fuelling the fire is what they’re best at. Take the example of an headline below. The news was covered when posters were put up by Khalistanis calling the Indian diplomats as “Killers of Nijjar”
The attempts to push forth misinformation have been so expansive that commitment of folly is apparent. In the article below, former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi have been quoted as British Prime Minister.
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi is always on their hit-list. The Chinese information operation has been following the lines of Khalistanis, parroting the same narrative which Khalistani elements does. In a stanza criticizing the Congress’ policies against the Sikhs, the HED which they have opt for is “Modi government policies”
Planting the agenda is not something new, playing with the history to instigate hatred and divide the religious communities in India is what the Chinese have been doing for long. If one looks at the paragraph closely from a Toutiao’s post, it will be obvious how conveniently the history has been moulded to suit the narrative. Sikhs were never incompatible with Hinduism in fact, the shared bond was deep-rooted and shared.
The Chinese social-media platform- Bilibili popularly known as the Instagram for Chinese is an active platform for pushing Khalistani rallies and protests in Canada and the UK. On some video, views are up to 10K.
On Weibo, Chinese most-popular social media platform, premium accounts with 7 Million fans have been pushing the Khalistani rallies and accusing Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi for discrimination and injustice.
Even the Chinese are aware of how the US is using Khalistani stooges for its own agenda, gaining massive traction on their posts, which is why the majority of the West is silent on the violent activities of the Khalistanis.
It’s not just the Western media which chants the cries of ‘Hindutva Government’ in India. Prominent Chinese media- Sanli Inews with 1.21M subscribers also did the same while covering the news of Trudeau’s allegations on India in Hardeep Sigh Nijjar’s killing. They did not forget to quote ‘Hindutva Movement’ while explaining the Khalistan movement.
Another Chinese media portal Focus Global News with 244K subscribers has used the headline that Hardeep Singh Nijjar has been “assassinated.”
Thus, undoubtedly Chinese have been flaming the fire of Khalistan, swiftly but definitely. In a world of agenda-driven campaigns and biased news, it is essential to be wary of propaganda.
Republished with author’s permission.
