State Media Poll: Chinese Think India Is ‘Too Dependent’ on China

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday published a poll that purportedly found 70 percent support among Chinese for their government to retaliate “strongly” against “Indian provocation.”

Among other findings, the poll said nearly 50 percent of Chinese think India is too economically dependent upon China, an assessment many Indians would agree with.

Given that China is a totalitarian state and the Global Times publishes content exclusively favorable to the Chinese Communist Party, the authenticity of the poll is difficult, if impossible, to verify – making the statistic showing Chinese people agreeing with many in India that the country should not rely so much on the Chinese economy a peculiar data point.

The poll provided a cornucopia of Chinese nationalist sentiment, including large majorities who felt “anti-China sentiment in India is excessive,” India’s military is no threat to China, and India’s “national strength” will never surpass that of China. 

According to the poll, the second-worst obstacle in relations between India and China is “U.S. interference,” followed closely by India’s unreasonable hostility toward China.

35 percent of respondents said they were angry about India’s #BoycottChina movement and urged their government to retaliate, while 29 percent said India “isn’t serious” about the effort so it should be ignored.

Over 89 percent of respondents supported “China’s use of force to fight back in self-defense” if there is “another border conflict.” Chinese propaganda holds India as the aggressor in the bloody June brawl along the border in the Galwan Valley, while India accuses the Chinese of encroaching on their territory.

The Global Times sought to put a happy face on their poll by including some optimism about the future of India-China relations – provided the Indians behave themselves:

The survey also showed that 25 percent of the participants are optimistic about bilateral relations as they believe “China-India ties will be improved in the long term” even as 70.8 percent of them recognized that currently, Indians are being too hostile against China. This result somewhat surprised Chinese experts.

[China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations director Hu Shinseng] said China-India relations will see lots of ups and downs, and although India is unlikely to start an all-out confrontation against China, it will make trouble occasionally in the China-India border regions.

“The optimistic attitude of some Chinese people toward China-India relations is probably based on the confidence in China’s comprehensive national strength, which is much greater than India’s. Normally, the stronger side would have a more confident and optimistic attitude to its relations with other countries,” Hu noted.

The Chinese state media article labored to imply India’s unreasoning hostility to China is born of India’s ignorance, lavishing praise on Chinese citizens for how well they supposedly understand and appreciate Indian culture – their fondness for Bollywood movies and yoga exercises was specifically mentioned, although they are supposedly concerned about “the dire situation facing Indian women, such as horrific rape cases that are widely and frequently reported by international media.” 

Poll respondents ranked India – the country they supposedly want punished for foolishly picking fights with Beijing – as their fourth-favorite neighbor after Russia, Pakistan, and Japan. This was said to demonstrate that “Chinese people can rationally separate the Indian government, which is provoking China, from the innocent Indian culture and people.”

India and China are still attempting to de-escalate tensions on their border, but tensions remain high, “disengagement” of forces appears to have stalled, and Indian officials are accusing the Chinese of making “exaggerated and untenable claims.” 

Much of India’s messaging is aimed at convincing the Chinese they would not have an easy victory if they provoke a military conflict along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The chief minister of Punjab, Capt. Amarinder Singh, warned on Wednesday that if China starts a war, Pakistan would soon be drawn in as well.

The Indian Express on Thursday reported a “massive Chinese build-up” along the LAC, including a “massive habitat for a large troop formation,” road construction, and artillery deployment.