China is a one-party state with power lying mainly in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, it is one of the five permanent members of the UN’s Security Council and thus possesses tremendous power and reach.

History of China’s Economy

The trade reforms introduced in 1978 have changed the economic position of the country on a gigantic level. 

After the reforms were introduced, the country began to open and its economy has seen tremendous growth. GDP growth averaged over 10% per year, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing-economies.

Recently, however, due to several imbalances, comparatively low growth rate of institutional development and fast pacing economic development, there have been several reform gaps that have kept the GDP growth rate at 6% per year and it has been decreasing continuously. The country has made Innovation its top priority while working on the strategy for the 2020-25 growth model catering to the current scenario.

China’s Strategic Advantage

China is an upper-middle-income country and a major supplier of raw materials to the rest of the world. It observes major investment from MNCs globally. Most of the products that we use in our daily life are labeled as either made in China or assembled in China.

Apple iPhone, which is considered a revolutionary product, gets its product assembling done in China. Low labour costs were considered the main reason initially but there has been a shift in recent years. Since countries like India, Vietnam, etc. can provide even cheaper labour, hence the question arises, what makes China different?

The answer is the quality of labour and the type of skill provided. As said by Tim Cook “You find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, is very important to our business.”

Thus, comparatively low labour costs, highly skilled labour, the ability to produce big consignment daily due to the strong labour force and a large home market make China an ideal country for product assembly. 

Trade Relations with India

Economic relations between India and China date back to ancient times with the Silk Route being the major trade route then. China is a major exporter of raw materials like pharmaceutical ingredients, steel, electronic devices, fertilizers for India, thus making India as China’s biggest trading partner after the US. India too runs a huge trade deficit with China.

The major inability of Indian companies to produce products at low rates arises because of a lack of research and development facilities, poor infrastructure and incompetent labour policies.

In a survey of about 90 people, it was asked: “What is the main reason that encourages you to buy foreign goods?”

The following were the observations:

Due to this Chinese goods gain an edge and find a huge market in India. Moreover, the Indian population forms a large base for many Chinese apps. These do not mainly contribute to revenue but they help in boosting the reach of the product which is even more beneficial for the companies.

However, with the recent clashes and increasing deficits, the Indian government has banned several Chinese applications and has been constantly focusing on promoting the ‘Made in India’ campaign.

Impact of the Current Situation

With the advent of the current pandemic, almost all economies have come to a standstill. While some of the countries have been able to deal with the situation efficiently and have already observed the peaks, others like the US and India are the worst struck and their economies have faced a major shock. 

China has been accused of hiding information about the virus which eventually led to the pandemic. Markets crashed and the price of crude barrels fell to such an extent that they became negative for the first time in history. Many people have been laid off from their jobs, causing them to fall into debt traps.

However, the current border tensions with China have induced an even greater hatred among Indian citizens towards Chinese goods and services. Many Chinese contracts and tenders have been reworked and the suppliers have been changed. These have vastly affected China’s economy.

Nevertheless, the economic interdependence of the two nations is way too important to be ignored. An all-out boycotting of Chinese goods would force people to buy expensive goods in this period of recession. This would just worsen the situation and the governments would have to further moderate the policies to accommodate the situation.

Conclusion

 It can be rightly said that the expansionist and influential regime of the Chinese government is at an all-time high. China might be taking this course of action to drive the attention of the world away from COVID allegations by having disputes with other nations. However, with this course of action, it is losing a huge consumer base in India. Though low priced quality goods might still prevail in the markets as Indians don’t have good homemade alternatives.

India and China have been embroiled in border disputes since 1962 after the Indo-China talks failed. China has always been intruding in the territorial sovereignty of India, this has been very common but the international community never held China liable because of its veto in UN and structural hegemony in international markets but the advent of COVID-19 has led to an international bias against China. The factual matrix has created a situation in which China might be held liable for the very first time for violating the ceasefire agreement on LAC as it has lost support in the international arena and the CCP is facing extreme criticisms for its violations and misuse of authority.

The first step towards the long turn process of improving the efficiency of production in India should be taken immediately. Trade shouldn’t be stopped but the trade deficit needs to be brought to a balance to prevent other nations from exerting dominance in the future.

China needs to take into account the possible isolation by other countries in the long run which might bring down the already decreasing GDP growth and the scenario before 1978 might come into the picture again. China should acknowledge the need of the hour and help its subordinate countries with the current pandemic, help in building their economies to ensure healthy trade relations, the welfare of mankind and stability. History is evident, Wars cease to create any good, rather are a great way to destroy the global economy, loss of life and property and leave the world in a state of regret and despair. 

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The result is that today we have Al Jazeera English, Telesur and China Global Television Network (CGTN). AJE is funded by the Emir of Qatar, Telesur by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and several other Latin American governments and CGTN is owned by the Communist Chinese government. Even though these media outlets are state-run, they do not merely function as government mouthpieces. Their editorial policies vary according to essentially where they are located. But a common theme amongst three media outlets is that they aim to offer something different than the BBC and CNN, their reasons for the same vary though.

Telesur Editorial Policy

Telesur is based in Caracas and it was launched as a 24/7 in October 2005. It’s stated editorial policy is to offer a different vision of news from the BBC or the CNN. The reason for this is that Telesur believes that these big media outlets for the longest time did not present their side of the story, it was always one-sided and against them. Never did the likes of CNN bothered to cover the local news of Latin American countries. CNN and the likes always seemed to pass America’s foreign policy goals. Telesur policy has been to challenge/critique American imperialism. A simple youtube search result shows the numerous programmes done by Telesur on US imperialism. 

Telesur not only gives an in-depth perspective of the Latin American people but it also to some extent focuses on raising the issues from the Global South. For eg., they did a story on the Indian Army’s Brutality in Kashmir. Telesur took a pro-people stand and an anti-establishment view. 

Al Jazeera Editorial Policy

AJE was launched in November 2006, although there was already AJA (Arabic). The reason to launch an English version was to reach a global audience and present the views of the Arab/Muslim world. After the 9/11 attacks, the coverage of the Middle Eastern countries by the likes of the BBC and CNN had created a negative stereotype about the Arab world. The one-sided coverage of the Iraq war by BBC world and CNN only played a spoilsport in strengthening the stereotype against the Arab population. AJE’s editorial policy, therefore, has been to present both sides of the story. Their aim is to provide a different perspective on the news.

According to Josh Rushing (AJ’s US Defence and Military Correspondent), “I tell people that Al-Jazeera provides a different perspective to CNN but an equally important one. CNN films the launch of a missile, AJ films what happens when it lands”. AJ provide different perspectives in three ways, firstly by covering the same international news in an alternate way to the ‘Western perspective’ of the BBC World and CNN, secondly, they cover the parts of the world which no one covers, which tends not to get reported at all and thirdly by covering the developing countries (Global South) in an original way. So their editorial policy is pretty much like Telesur when it comes to presenting a different world view about the Arab world. 

China’s Global Television Network’s Editorial Policy

CGTN, the Chinese media outlet has a different editorial policy than Telesur and AJE. Since it’s controlled by the government, it mostly acts as an extended arm of the government. CGTN’s policy has been to show the better side of China to the world and debunk many stereotypes that the Western world has of China. China is always perceived with a negative perception in the Western world (America, EU countries etc) because of their being a Communist government and how there’s no press freedom at all. The recent reports of curbing dissent and protests and violation of Human Rights has also led many to have a very bad image of China. 

Chinese government’s aim, therefore, is to change this perception and they use CGTN as their foreign policy arm. CGTN, therefore, channels the interests of the government in a more direct way. CGTN is trying to accomplish certain goals through its editorial policy, firstly it does shows on emphasising on History, culture, Philosophy and civilization of China, secondly, through its programmes it tries to assert that China is emerging as a formidable economic power (eg., their coverage of the celebration of ten years of Beijing Olympics) and lastly it wants to address certain stereotypes about China. So it’s quite evident that the Chinese government wants to change its global image with the help of CGTN. China wants the world to like it and increase its soft power through CGTN. 

As discussed above, China wants the world to like it and it cannot happen unless positive aspects of China are shown to the world. China’s growing military power, its political system along with its growing human rights violations, and it’s economic strength all contribute to its negative image abroad. For this reason, the Chinese government felt the need to invest in global media. The other reason to go global was that the government was not happy with the way they have been covered by the Western media in the past. Hence China invested more in strengthening it’s foreign language channels and expanded its partnership with foreign television organizations. Leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics the Western media had increased its coverage of China in a more hostile way, highlighting the Chinese government’s Human Rights violation records. The Western media’s coverage of the pro-Tibetan riots was seen by the Chinese government to be as anti-Chinese.

A CBN  report highlighted the lack of democracy in China (no free journalism and suppression of dissent). It was believed that this would change after the games as post the Olympics China was seen to have graduated as ‘World Power’. But nothing changed and the negative coverage of China by the Western media continued. Hence China could not wait for the Western media to change its critical stance on China and therefore it was needed that China is proactive and “go global” and push for Chinese perspectives into the international arena if it wanted to contest the discursive power of the West. CCTV (now CGTN) China’s premier broadcaster global expansion has risen manifold after the decision to go global was taken. CCTV claims to have achieved global coverage with its. CCTV4. It’s a Mandarin-language channel whose target audience is overseas Chinese-speaking viewers. The channel reaches approx 10 million viewers outside China in 93 countries. There’s another channel which has helped its global reach, CCTV-9, a foreign-language channel (English, French & Spanish). It has some 40 million viewers overseas in 94 countries. 

Conclusion

The editorial policy of a news media outlet varies according to the region, the tensions in the surroundings as well the political environment of the region. Although it would seem that the editorial policies of the above-discussed media outlets are similar, it’d be wrong to make a quick judgement. A quick glance at their websites gives a clear picture of the kind of stories they do and what do they want to tell the world through those stories. 

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