Doklam isn't trending on Chinese Twitter

BEIJING: China's youth are largely nonchalant about calls by a hawkish section of the official media to “teach India a lesson“ over the Doklam stand-off. Most of them are even ignorant of such a border row because they pay little attention to the official media. This is evident from the insignificant level of discussions on the Chinese social media about the issue.

The issue did not figure among the top 50 trending topics on Sina Weibo on Saturday , the Chinese version of Twitter, which has over 340 million users in the country .

There are signs that attempts made by a section of the official media to whip up passions against India have not succeeded, probably because there is no history of animosity among ordinary Chinese towards India. China's ultra-nationalists had managed to arouse a lot of passion against Japan during the 2012 territorial dispute because the two countries have been at loggerheads through much of history .

Even the top echelons of the Communist Party seem to have refrained from using the social media to instil anti-India sentiment. Comments about the Sino-India border problem have been few and far between. One researcher who scrutinized Weibo posts told TNN that postings and repostings (retweets) do not exceed a few thousand. This is minuscule compared to the fact that the top trending topic on Saturday had 896,592 followers. The 50th and the last in the list had 39,039 followers.

China has a huge tribe of people called the “50 cent party“ who tend to manipulate the social media by posting millions of comments favouring the viewpoint of the government and the Communist Party , according to research conducted by several thinktanks and western universities. “I think the `50 cent party' has not yet been asked to paint India as an aggressor on the border. The government may not yet be ready to do that because it is very difficult to improve the relationship with a country which has been widely defamed in the eyes of the ordinary people,“ a Chinese researcher said while requesting anonymity .

On the other hand, a section of the governmentbacked media, including the Beijing-based Global Times, and more than a dozen experts working with government-backed thinktanks have been busy finding fault with India not just about the border stand-off but over a range of issues, including poverty.

Most Chinese youth are active on social media and nearly 70% of Weibo's users are believed to be below the age of 30. Young people are also very active users compared to the older users. But they seem to be too involved with domestic issues to be bothered about angry nationalistic sentiment.

Only two of the 50 top trending topics are in some way related to foreigners. One is about some programmes on South Korean TV and another involves a complaint about a Chinese youth being badly treated by an American. Rest of the topics relate to Chinese celebrities and local issues.