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Last Friday, FilterLabs looked at Indian perspectives on the ongoing China-India border talks. Today we’re looking at recent developments in the border dispute from the other side of the fence, from the Chinese point of view. (For some background on the conflict, see the sidebar on the right.) Sentiment Trends: India & the BorderChina’s state-sponsored media and social media users have been following the talks about the disputed regions of the Himalayas closely. Sentiment turned sharply upward in late October, when China and India reached a patrolling agreement on the eve of a BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. The agreement aimed to reduce troop buildup on the borders and deescalate tensions to where they were before the 15 June 2020 skirmishes. |
China-India border conflict: A brief primerThe border disagreement between China and India is a longstanding territorial dispute that has led to tension, military standoffs, and occasional violence. It revolves around several regions, primarily in the Himalayan area, and stems from unclear demarcations established during British colonial rule and China's territorial claims. This has led to several military skirmishes, most notably the 1962 Sino-Indian War where China led an offensive in disputed regions and the recent 2020 Galwan Valley Clash that resulted in 20 dead Indian soldiers and 4 dead Chinese soldiers. This past September, while in New York for the UN General Assembly, India’s External Affairs Minister spoke about India and China’s relationship, stressing its importance for the future of Asia and stating that 75% of the progress on the China-India border dispute talks was complete. Only disengagement of troops in eastern Ladakh was left. In late October, as we discussed in Friday’s post, India and China reached a disengagement agreement for Ladakh. On December 18 Special Representatives from the two countries held the first high-level talks on the border since 2019 and came to a formal agreement on a number of points—a step many regarded as highly significant progress toward normalized relations. |
Sentiment around the border issue and relationship with India then leveled off before beginning to trend negatively in the first week of November. Looking more closely with Talisman, our data dashboard, FilterLabs found that the falling sentiment was due to a series of media publications examining the military standoff and speculating about how China and India would fare, respectively. The media artifacts scored negatively in overall sentiment, but (unsurprisingly) most commentators were confident about victory against India, citing China’s modernized military.
Sentiment around the border talks shot in a positive direction in December, when China and India resumed their high-level talks on the border (for the first time since 2019) and agreed to strengthen cross-border exchanges. Progress in the talks has effectively ended the border crisis.
Talisman enables us to separate different media types for analysis and comparison. For example, as we dug into Chinese online discourse on the border, the FilterLabs team analyzed state-sponsored Chinese media separately from discourse on social media platforms in order to glean insights into the differences between official government responses and Chinese public opinion.
Chinese state media has primarily relayed the statements of high-level officials, most notably Xi Jinping’s comments during October 2024 BRICS Summit, where he said China and India hold “development opportunities for each other and do not pose a threat to each other" and "are partners rather than competitors.” These diplomatically worded statements emphasize the importance of the relationship, why conflict should be avoided, the potential of greater cooperation, and the potential of a multipolar world. The tone is positive, even amelioratory.
Chinese netizens are much more negative about India. Their sentiments regarding the border discussions are primarily positive, but social media posts tend to describe the Indian army as “hateful,” and many feel as though China shouldn’t have to negotiate for the border. Others ridicule India’s conception of its military strength. Those who write most favorably about the talks claim that India has “made significant concessions.” In one popular framing, the talks are good, and greater cooperation will benefit both countries, but China is doing India a favor by entering these talks at all.
One factor in the prevalence of more negative narratives in social media than in state-sponsored news could be the government’s inability to shift public opinion as rapidly as policy—a limitation of even the most advanced and robust domestic propaganda machines. When a state has spent decades deriding a foreign country, the populace who have imbibed that content for years won't switch overnight to positive views.
It is hard to know how much of this perspective the Chinese government shares, if any. On social media, however, it’s clear that despite progress in diplomatic talks, a significant amount of distrust toward India remains.
Check out the live data on our data analysis platform, Talisman! You can explore the charts in the interactive dashboard for this newsletter, and subscribers with full platform access can even investigate the individual artifacts underlying the data.
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