Research Note: Chinese Media Coverage of
Nepal Insurgency
2LT Zachary Harrison
The purpose of
this article is to provide a summary of China's Chinese-language media coverage
and especially regional coverage of the war in Nepal as accessible through on-
line web sites. Given the proximity to Tibet, the reports of Nepalese insurgents
using Tibetan territory for training, and the potential for the war to further
destabilize an already volatile region, one might think that Chinese media
organizations in the provinces near Nepal would be paying close attention to
what is happening in Nepal. They may be, but if they are they are not publishing
that news on their web sites that are accessible to global internet users who read
Chinese. In the past six months the regional media in western China has
provided very little on-line coverage of Nepal's civil war. Some of the most
notable events to occur in Nepal between the Maoists and the Nepalese
government have either gone unreported or have been lightly touched. Analysis,
furthermore, is even harder to find than reporting.
To survey China's regional on-line press reporting of Nepal I searched for
articles on five key events: the assassination of a mayor (January 18, 2004:
Gopal Giri), Operation Kalikot (February 17, 2004: 60 Maoists killed), the Battle
of Bhojpur (March 3, 2004: 29 security personnel, 10 Maoist killed), the Battle of
Benni (March 22, 2004: death of 30 security personnel, 40 Maoist, 15 civilians;
Royal Nepalese Army reported 500 Maoist killed), and heavy combat that
resulted in two police and 41 other deaths (April 8, 2004). I found just two
reports on these events on regional Chinese web sites: one was on the Chengdu
Television site (www.chengdutv.com). Chengdu is in Sichuan Province east of
Tibet and that site carried a report on the March 3 incident. The Chengdu
Daily (www.cdrb.com) reported on the April 8 fighting. Neither The
Sichuan Daily (www.scrb.com), the Nanhai Daily (www.nhrb.net), nor
a major Tibetan site (www.chinawestnews.net) mention these events. 1
There is reporting on Nepal in China mainstream government-controlled
media, but it is essentially factual and never touches sensitive issues such as the
potential for spillover into Tibet. Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Sun Heping has
called the Maoists challenge in media interviews and has repeated China
stance that the Maoist insurgency is an nternal matter and that Nepal has the ull
capacity and wisdom to solve its own problem. Sun also refers to the U.S. and
India as riendly countries whose actions do not violate Sino-Nepali relations.
China says little in its media about its foreign assistance to Nepal which
other sources say has even included the sale of non-lethal military hardware
such as high frequency radios. Beijing-based media does criticize the Nepalese
Maoists use of Mao name, but they do not explain what is un-Maoist about the
Maoists. The PRC media has taken the U.S. to task for military assistance which
Chinese analysts claim is intended to gain a foothold on China periphery.
Despite the generally bland reporting on Nepal, there was one recent
anachronistic piece wherein the author apparently thinks that the Nepalese
Maoists are in vogue. The article is unique in its candidness and praise for the
revolutionary zeal of the Maoists against he feudal monarchy. 2 The
most likely explanation for its content is that the article's author is completely
unaware of official PRC policy towards Nepal's conflict. It is unusual that it has
remained on one of China most popular sites for over a month.
One other point to note about China's media coverage of Nepal is that the
media carefully follows the government and does not call the Maoists terrorists.
3 Through five months of
research I have not found a single article published in China that refers to the
Maoist insurgents as terrorists. The Chinese press address them as "anti-
government armed forces," "anti-government guerrillas," and sometimes as
"reactionary forces." Even in describing Maoist tactics, only "guerrilla tactics" is
used; never "terrorist tactics."
_______________________
Biographical Note: 2LT Zachary Harrison graduated from the United
States Military Academy on May 29, 2004 and was commissioned into the
Engineer branch. An operations research major, Lieutenant Harrison wrote this
essay for an advanced individual studies course in Chinese. Most of the course
was spent finding and translating Chinese articles on the Nepalese insurgency.
At the end of the semester 2LT Harrison used his web searching and Chinese
skills to conduct the survey of regional reporting. 2LT Harrison's first assignment
is Fort Riley and he hopes to eventually serve as a China FAO.
Endnotes
1. Chinese regional newspaper web
sites typically do not have search engines. Using the assumption that the PRC
would prefer internet users to read national media sites, one has to manually look
through all the articles posted each day on a Chinese media web site.BACK
2.
http://bbs.people.com.cn/bbs/ReadFile?whichfile=333&typeid=96, accessed April
and May 2004.BACK
3. The U.S., Nepalese, and Indian
governments have all designated them as terrorists.BACK
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