The war of narratives

It has become quite a fashion for the Western World and the United States to hit China and several initiatives of the Chinese government below the belt but the fact that in the most recent years especially since 2013, China has emerged on the globe as the new champion of socio-economic uplift of the common man especially in the entire Asian region and in the under- developed countries.

More initiatives China announces, more heat the United States and the Western world feels. The catharsis oozes out in the form of irresponsible statements made by the so-called champions of democracy and the shapers of modern diplomacy in today’s most advanced and the most informed world both on diplomatic as well as diplomatic fronts. Unfortunately, this is more damaging to the civility and the best human traits than harming China and its political leadership.

As contrary to the Western and the American leadership, Chinese intelligentsia and the political leadership instead of hitting back the propagandists and their mentors, always demonstrate their wisdom by way of coming out with more solid and tangible new initiatives. Although the Chinese media is much more vigilant and it always comes up with the timely rejoinders yet it as a part of their state policy stays limited to mere correction of facts and following the principle of “seeing and believing” feels enough of furnishing testimonials inviting the concerned fraternities to eyewitness instead of falling a prey to the negativity spread by the evil minds.

No doubt that the west and the US are more familiar with the art and tactics of ruling through narrative building through manipulated figures and distorted facts but the China’s way sounds more logical to combat the perception using the facts as an effective tool. Ultimately, the real-time eyewitnesses of the situation play significant role to act as fire extinguishers against the fake propaganda.

Quite unfortunately, the Western intelligentsia, political leadership and their media having failed to respond China’s global economic agenda with the due appreciation and instead of following the landmark success stories of Chinese economic rise, they fell below the desired level which indeed shows their incapability and lack of agenda as its execution strategy even for their own people, if not for the world at large.

This is bringing the world on once again on the verge of extinction where harmony is getting dominated by the unnecessary confrontation and new conflicts. Pity is that the media too is demonstrating higher level of insanity and sense sounds helpless to prevail. How biased do the western media and the so-called anti-Chinese think-tanks proceed against China, can be aptly witnessed through the frivolous and highly manipulated reports published in their newspapers, journals and other policy papers from time to time not only in recent times but the practice started right from the day, the revolution by Mao reached its ultimate conclusion and it witnessed the dawn as one of the most successful and sustainable in the human history.

According to studies conducted by many unbiased and learned sources, and most credible studies conducted in this regard, almost more than sixty percent of all mainstream Western as well as the US media outlets issue reports, which are mostly based on fake propaganda on China’s internal human rights situation. It is actually quite understandable due to many obvious reasons that the West in general and the United States in particular, are losing their wars on economic front and as a result their own people are distancing from their states, ultimately the relationship between their states and the common man is weakening leaps and bound and the gulf of trust between the states and the people in the so-called democratic systems is increasing which the rulers of these countries are failing to bridge at least at the moment.

Then as opposed to essence of their democratic principles, the state and the so-called democratic rulers are also failing to ensure inclusive governance not only in their own countries but also in the countries and the states, which had been under their immense influence over decades, are no exception and facing the same fate.

Considering the China’s historic initiative of the One-Belt-One-Road and the philosophy, which as a matter of agenda is backed by the comprehensive strategy for the socio-economic uplift of the people living in the third world and the people of the entire Asia, the western world and the United States together wrongly perceived it as a threat to their mightiness and power-base. Indeed, the only goal behind their agenda to keep the world under their influence and dominance is to present the United States as the single-pole and hub of all socio-economic hub for the entire world but indeed being very shallow, lacking common agenda for the development of the third world countries and to bring the states into mainstream of global development, it has lost the appeal. On the contrary, China didn’t only propound the idea of One-belt-One Road but it chalked out a quite solid and realistic plan to foster the economic growth and infrastructure process combining all the new and old projects, comprehending “an expansive geographic scope, and includes efforts to strengthen hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure, and cultural ties”.

Since day one China’s OBOR includes tangible plan for the 65 countries with a combined Gross Domestic Product of $23 trillion which includes sustainable and solid workable plan to uplift fate of approximately 4.4 billion people living in the region. All this created panic among the entire western world especially those who have tilt toward the United States of America.

Instead of complimenting the greater cause and a real service to the humanity in large number, the US and its allies started getting heat with the fear that the expansion of OBOR is not likely to stop or stay limited to the Asian region but having witnessed it success more countries from even the Europe especially those who are not on par with the western world, would join this model for the inclusive growth and development, ultimately, China would dominate which might shake their power base.

To coup with this challenge, these so-called western powers and the United States started propaganda on several fronts. The most effective, short-term and the quickest in their opinion was to use the tool of religion and religious rights keeping in view the dominance of religious factor in Pakistan.

The reasons behind arousing the sentiments of the people of Pakistan are quite obvious. No second thought that whenever the western and the United States are mainly focusing on Pakistan and the common Pakistani Muslim in particular, whenever they come along with the new incident or the policy analysis through their media and think-tanks.

The rationales behind their key focus on Pakistan may be many but following are the key ones: Pakistani people have been generally very sensitive on the matters related to the religion. The US and the Western world have experienced of successfully exploiting religious sentiments. The most significant example is use rather exploitation of the same sentiments during the US’s war with the USSR in Afghanistan. Hence, religion was considered to be one of the most quick and the best tool using a few fake and false incidents allegedly in China especially in the Xinxiang state of China.

Pakistan and China have entered in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which even in the words of the Chinese President, Xi is flagship project under China’s OBOR initiative. Its success means successful execution of all projects under OBOR and its failure mean disappointment for the rest of the countries which are counting on China’s OBOR initiative, result might be failure of the OBOR and cutting China’s wings which are flexing in the form of fast growing Chinese influence across the globe.

Pakistan no doubt, enjoys privileged position among rest of the Muslim World and most of the countries despite their policy differences with the rulers of Pakistan from time to time on issue to issue basis, believe Pakistani people as the most passionate and committed to the common mission of the entire Muslim World and all related communities. Exploiting their sentiments related to the Muslims living in any part of the world especially if they are living as a part of some non- Muslim country in the name of their religious freedom and their civil rights violation has been a tested and very successful tool especially for the Western world and the United States. 

Writer M. Asim Khan, Development Communication Specialist/Former Spokesman of the Government of Pakistan on CPEC & the Public Sector Development Program, Ministry of Planning, Development & Reform