China’s State Media Mocks Indians In A Racist Video, Misrepresents Facts On Doklam Stand-Off

Chinese state-run Xinhua News, which has sought to project India as the aggressor in the ongoing stand-off in Doklam, hit another low on Wednesday as it unleashed the latest weapon in its propaganda war against India.

The weapon – a racist video that misrepresents widely known facts related to the ongoing stand-off – is the latest in a series of juvenile attempt by the Chinese media to present Doklam as an undisputed Chinese territory.

Projecting Indians as clueless, bumbling and hairy, the video paints an aggrieved and one-sided picture of events in the ongoing stand-off. Presented in English for Indian and Western audience, the poorly edited video called "Seven Sins of India" shows a Chinese male speaking in an Indian accent, sporting a turban and fake facial hair in an apparent representation of a Sikh man.

The video mocks concern in India and Bhutan about Chinese road construction in the disputed zone, equating Beijing’s unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the region to a man "building a path in his garden". Comparing New Delhi's actions in the border area to "a robber who had just broken into your house and refused to leave”, the video called Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government "asleep" and "thick-skinned". It then went a step further, calling India's defense of Bhutan as a attempt to "hijack" a smaller Himalayan neighbour.

“Didn’t your mumma tell you, never break the law?” the female presenter of the video mutters, forgetting that China had not long ago rejected the judgment by an international tribunal in The Hague in relations to its ‘historical’ claims to a large chunk of the South China Sea. To be accurate, it is China that has become synonymous with an region bully and a violator of international laws.

Beijing would do well to rein in its state-controlled media before outlets like Xinhua leave no space for the communist regime to carry out a face saving exercise or to tone down hostilities by agreeing to mutual withdrawal of troops – the only practical solution to the ongoing stand-off.