Adding another angle to its anti-India rhetoric, Chinese
state publication Global Times has now called the Chinese companies to wait and
see before making a decision to invest in India.
An editorial in the publication warns Chinese companies that
"violent attacks against Chinese personnel and companies may happen in
India if the two countries see even small-scale military tension at the
border."
Drawing a Vietnam parallel where, according to the article,
anti-China riots in 2014 due to Vietnam-China tension on South China Sea claims
left many Chinese dead and over 100 injured, it says that though India is a
potential market, the would-be investors from China should perhaps take a
wait-and-see approach and then in a judgemental tone, goes on to say that due
to this prevailing scenario, "new investment from China into India is
likely to be reduced."
The editorial warns that that Indian nationalism may push an
anti-China sentiment in the same way in India as in Vietnam with the escalating
border tension and it may be further fuelled by ethnic and religious factors
and the "Chinese firms doing business in India, especially those in the
retail and consumer electronics industries, need to take precautions against
possible boycotts and should strive to ensure the personal safety of Chinese
workers if there is an escalation in tensions between the two countries."
The border standoff between China and India near the Bhutan
tri-junction in the Doklam area in the Sikkim sector is now in its 20th day and
both sides are maintaining their tough stands.
China has already ratcheted up its anti-India rhetoric,
infusing it with war threats, saying it is now up to India to deescalate the
border tension and withdraw its troops from an area that it claims as its own,
as Chinese Ambassador to India Lau Zhaohui reiterated in an interview yesterday
while India maintains that the India-China border in the area is still not
fully demarcated, and Beijing, in fact, in 2012 agreed that any solution can be
reached at only after consultation among all parties including Bhutan.
Doklam that China considers a part of its Donglang region
has been a long running territorial dispute between Bhutan and China and Bhutan
even issued a demarche to China on construction of road in the area by the PLA.
Indian troops entered the area to prevent the road construction with India
informing China that it was against the agreement of maintaining the status quo
in the area as agreed in the past.
But an autocratic and expansionist China refused to budge, and
in fact, has unleashed an intense propaganda war against India aimed to dislodge
the legally valid Indian claims and has employed every possible propaganda tool
in its arsenal, be it the high pitched ‘war possibility’ threat or arrogant
responses delivered by its higher level officials including daily briefings of
its foreign ministry or indiscriminate verbal firing rounds by its official
publications like Global Times of Xinhua.
©SantoshChaubey