 "Why West’s propaganda and China’s state-controlled media share a common anti-India bias")
The media is considered to be the fourth pillar of democracy. However, this does not mean that there exists no press in non-democracies. In the world’s two most powerful countries, which follow two completely different models of governance, the media does exist.
The US boasts, or at least used to boast of, a free press, while China also has media, albeit state-controlled primarily. In the internet age, wherein access to information has become truly available at our fingertips, the lines between the conventional tenets of journalism, new media, citizen journalism, propaganda, and state-led disinformation, as well as misinformation, have all become blurred.
The job of a journalist thus becomes much more tedious and painful, even though it is assumed that access to technology and the internet makes it easier. In this context, the importance of fact-checks has become more important than ever before.
In reporting on foreign policies, while the coverage is supposed to be objective, the recent conflict between India and Pakistan revealed that the media from China as well as from the West have similar biases. While it is understandable as to why state-controlled media from China would not conduct fact checks and support a narrative provided by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), supporting its all-weather friend, Pakistan, understanding why free press from the West, which touts values of freedom, objectivity and balanced coverage, would propel Pakistani propaganda.
Reuters, CNN, Bloomberg, The New York Times, Washington Post, and the BBC have all been accused of peddling Pakistani propaganda without fact checks, even though India was conducting regular media briefings and the Press Information Bureau was actively countering Pakistani and Chinese disinformation online.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOne of the most glaring examples was when all the prominent media houses from China and the West were propelling the narrative of India’s jets being shot down by Pakistan. To date, neither has Pakistan provided photographic or videographic evidence of the apparently shot-down jets from India. It is simple logic that if Pakistan had to bolster its narrative, it would circulate evidence of the shot-down jet that landed in its territory.
To give due credit, Reuters did publish a story of how a low-quality image of an Indian fighter jet engulfed in flames after a crash in September 2024 has been falsely claimed online to show an Indian jet downed in the recent conflict between India and Pakistan. However, China Daily still continues with its disinformation.
China economically benefitted from the disinformation as well. Pakistan Today reported that the shares of Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, the Chinese aerospace company behind the J-10 fighter jet used by Pakistan, surged by 20 per cent on May 12, after reports of Pakistan shooting down India’s jets were circulated.
Nevertheless, Avic Chendu’s aircraft shares plummeted following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address on India’s Operation Sindoor, while Indian defence stocks rose. Given that Chinese media is state-controlled and will always follow the orders of the CCP and support Pakistan, it can be understood why it will not conduct fact checks.
Fact checks are not hallmarks of state-controlled media in any case. Also, China sought to economically benefit from the disinformation. China’s abuse of the democratic media space in India in pushing its malicious disinformation, while other countries cannot or do not do the same to China, owing to its tightly controlled media environment, is a sad reality the world lives with.
To understand why the West’s, the so-called beacon of democracy, narratives aligned with China’s, against India’s, a longer look has to be taken.
The World Press Freedom marked India at 151, ignoring the vibrant media landscape that India has. The index, to begin with, relies heavily on perceptions and opinions rather than hard data, making it susceptible to bias. Also, the specific weighting of indicators and the sources of data are not always fully disclosed, leading to concerns about transparency and potential biases. The Press Council of India (PCI) has attempted to engage with Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the organisation behind the index, to understand the methodology and inputs but has not received a response.
The question here is why has there been no response from RSF? The answer here is also the answer to why so-called free press will align with state-controlled Chinese media in tarnishing India’s image. But it is also pertinent to understand how free the free press in the West truly is.
In Turkey, in 2025, over 1100 people, including journalists, were arrested during a crackdown on anti-government protests. BBC correspondent Mark Lowen was detained in March and deported to London for reporting on these protests. At least 14 journalists were also injured in these protests. In Poland, a journalist was arrested and handed over to Ukrainian authorities; in Romania, an Irish RT journalist was detained in Bucharest while covering elections and deported to Istanbul, and this actually is a big issue with media suppression within the EU.
In Estonia, Andrea Lucidi, a Russian-Italian reporter, was detained by Estonian border guards for his criticism of Nazism in the Baltic states; in the UK, British journalist Kit Klarenberg was arrested by anti-terrorism police and interrogated for at least five hours for his political views; and Vanessa Beeley had a similar incident.
In 2022, in Germany, two Italian journalists were detained while reporting on a climate protest in Rome, and a Swedish journalist, Markus Jordö, was arrested in Stockholm while covering a climate demonstration.
In Turkey in the same year, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom documented 40 cases of journalist arrests or detentions in Turkey, which remains a significant hotspot for the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of media personnel.
In the US in 2024, at least 48 journalists were either detained or arrested, as per the US Press Freedom Tracker, and the number represents a surge compared to the previous two years combined.
However, somehow these numbers do not change the rankings which emanate from the freedom of the press in Western countries. As much as the media is supposed to be free of biases, biases remain. On the coverage of India, even if it is on foreign policy and international relations, the biases reflect which have led to a lack of fact checks from the dominant Western media.
The more India’s visibility as an important power in international affairs grows, the more these biases will become prominent, and the reflection of them in the recent India-Pakistan conflict was just the beginning. India needs to create its own rankings of media freedom across the world and rank countries as per clear indicators. Additionally, India should come up with legal provisions to counter malicious reportage, fearmongering and perception manipulation.
The author is Associate Professor, Chinese Studies and International Relations, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, Haryana. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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