Asymmetrical Indian and Chinese Threat Perceptions - India as an Emerging Power - page 108

and Pakistan implied that the threat to China derived from a possible threat of
conflict between these two countries, not from any sort of Indian threat to China.
The third reference to India came in the section on confidence-building measures
(CBM) and described the measures agreed by the two countries in November
1996. 11
China's second defense white paper was issued in October 2000. This report
more clearly and forcefully than the 1998 white paper identified the United
States as the greatest threat to China's security. The report also made clear that
the US threat to China was increasing. There was exactly one mention of India in
the 2000 white paper. Toward the end of the report a section on Nuclear Weapons
and Missile Defense stressed the importance of securing the 'entry into force' of
the 1996 Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In this regard,
'Such negative developments in the past two years as the nuclear tests in India
and Pakistan and the US Senate's refusal to ratify the CTBT' were noted.
A section on 'frontier defense' made no mention of India even though it
specified Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. India and Bhutan
were the only two countries bordering China not mentioned. Nor did the section
mention the November 1996 CBM agreed to by India and China, even though it
did mention chronologically prior CBMs agreed to between China and the
Central Asian countries in April 1996, and between China and Russia in April
1995. 12 These were strange and conspicuous silences suggesting that there is
more here than meets the eye. We shall return to this point in the section on the
function of Chinese media.
ASYMMETRICAL COVERAGE IN ELITE FOREIGN
POLICY JOURNALS
A second type of data documenting the very different perceptions of mutual
threat in China and India comes from analysis of the content of élite foreign
policy journals. These journals present thoughtful analytical articles for domestic
and foreign readers interested in Indian and Chinese foreign affairs respectively.
The authors of many of the articles in these journals reflect, to some degree,
analytical interpretation and policy advice given to higher-level decision makers.
They also, to some degree, reflect the views of a significant portion of the
attentive foreign policy audiences in the two countries. The central point here is
that élite Indian journals are very concerned about China while Chinese journals
are far less concerned with India.
Four authoritative and roughly comparable Indian and Chinese journals have
been selected for comparison over a period of four years, 1997-2000. Two
monthly journals selected for content analysis are Strategic Analysis, published
by the quasi-governmental Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) in