Indians Aren't Buying China's Face-Mask Diplomacy

Shadi Hamid: China is avoiding blame by trolling the world

This anti-China sentiment has manifested in a number of ways. The term “Wuhan virus”—popularized by President Donald Trump that critics say perpetuates already rampant racism and xenophobia surrounding the crisis—is regularly used in India, as are hashtags such as #ChinaLiedAndPeopleDied and #MakeChinaPay. A cartoon depicting the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, blindfolded with a Chinese-flag face mask has been widely circulated online by Indians (including Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, who tweeted the image to his 41 million followers before eventually deleting it). “Whether it’s memes on Twitter or WhatsApp, or comedy sketches or prime-time news shows dedicated to highlighting how China’s influenced the WHO or how it’s keeping Taiwan out of the WHO,” Madan said, “criticism of China has gone mainstream.”

Casting about for someone to blame for the pandemic is not unique to India (where Indian Muslims, who already bore the brunt of recent communal violence in the country, have faced an uptick in bigotry and attacks). In the United States, President Trump has found a multitude of targets, including the media, state governors, and the WHO. Still, for U.S. lawmakers, China has proved to be a rare source of consensus, scapegoated by both Republicans and Democrats alike. The same can’t be said for their Indian counterparts. Although many Indians, even some close to the government, have criticized Beijing’s handling of the pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been reluctant to do so.

“The government doesn’t want to go down the road of getting into a blame game,” Ashok Kantha, the Indian ambassador to China from 2014 to 2016 and now the director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in Delhi, told me. Part of the reason for this, Kantha said, is priorities: Delhi is more concerned with containing the virus than ascribing blame for it. Political pragmatism is also at play. India needs China, particularly when it comes to procuring medical equipment. Irrespective of Indian public opinion on China, “you will not see the Indian government outdo Trump on this,” Madan said.

While this widespread dependence on China could limit the degree of criticism Beijing gets in the short term, that does not mean it is impervious. Reports of faulty test kits and defective masks have already proved a blow to China’s diplomacy, as a number of countries are opting to reject Chinese-made equipment.

When I asked Madan whether the Chinese government cares about its perception among the Indian public, she said it’s unlikely. “They still think that their primary audience is the Indian government [because] that’s whom they can get stuff done with,” she said.

This may be the case for now, but it could prove problematic for Beijing in the long term. After all, how India—and, indeed, the rest of the world—perceives China in this moment will likely impact its global perception long after the pandemic has passed. “Being oblivious to the sentiments of 1.3 billion people of a country whose median age is 27 is not a sign of wisdom,” Nitin Pai, a co-founder and the director of the Takshashila Institution, told me in an email, “for they will see you as an adversary for the rest of their long lives.”

Yasmeen Serhan is a London-based staff writer at The Atlantic.