NEW DELHI: “Beijing has effectively seized control of media operations in Nepal, ensuring a stark absence of critical coverage regarding its investments in the Himalayan nation, encroachments on Nepalese land, and political machinations in Kathmandu. Negative narratives concerning the Dragon’s activities remain conspicuously absent from mainstream media outlets, painting a distorted picture shielded from public scrutiny.

The only few pockets of resistance that remain standing, so to speak, are local newspapers and magazines.

In addition to sanitizing coverage of China’s interference in Nepal’s strategic affairs, territorial encroachments, and debt-laden investments in Kathmandu, Beijing has orchestrated a concerted media campaign targeting Delhi and Washington. By deflecting attention away from its own actions, Beijing has effectively steered the narrative to cast shadows over other geopolitical players.

Sources in Nepal, speaking to the Sunday Guardian, revealed that the manipulation of media escalated notably during the tenure of Hu Yong, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal from November 2016 to December 2018. Substantial efforts in this regard continued under her successor, the enigmatic Hou Yanqi, who served until November 2022. Numerous voices in Kathmandu allege that Hou Yanqi, far from being a conventional diplomat, operated more as a member of the Chinese Communist Party, exerting significant influence over media affairs.

According to local officials and journalists, Beijing used three tools at its disposal to influence the reportage in Nepal.

First it sent an estimated 9000 Nepalese journalists to China on an all paid expense ‘learning’ trip in the past 5-6 years. According to a senior journalist, who has never been a part of this group, no journalists on his or her return could answer the question of what journalistic training and benefits they got in Beijing where there is no democracy and no freedom of expression.

Moreover, the offspring of these journalists were facilitated in securing admissions to prestigious Chinese universities, often at subsidized rates. Alternatively, arrangements were made wherein the Chinese government, leveraging various entities including ostensibly private firms, sponsored their education through scholarships.

This ensured that many of the influential journalists in Nepal became a reluctant accomplice in Beijing’s objective to exert control over Nepal.

The third way was to open affiliates of prominent Chinese state media in Nepal that are run by Chinese nationals. Armed with huge funds and advanced tools, these media entities have become powerful voices that transmit to Nepal what Beijing wants it to.

And on the radar of these media entities, for a long time now , is Washington and its Nepal related policies, especially the ones that are being executed under the $500 million grant given by U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to improve Nepal’s power and road networks that was signed in 2017 and ratified by the Nepalese parliament in February 2022.

These five years were marked with violent protests, reportages, most of them which were baseless, on how Washington was going to subjugate Nepal.

The said deal was ratified ten years after, in 2012, the Government of Nepal requested to collaborate with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. Government agency, to design a plan to grow the country’s economy and improve the lives of the Nepali people.

The US government had to release a ten points ‘factual sheet’ to tackle the misinformation that was spread by Nepali media on the prodding of Beijing. The clarification included Nepalis leading the project teams, being accountable to Nepali stakeholders for making decisions and achieving results, the agreement not prevailing over Nepal’s constitution, the agreement not being a military agreement, MCC funding cannot be used for military assistance or training, it not being a part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy and that it was a 100% grant funding – not loans.

These clarifications had to be issued to counter the substantial disinformation campaign that was launched by China backed media.

One of the few voices in Nepal, who has been highlighting the issue of Chinese hold over Nepali media , is journalist and author, Baburam Bishwakarma whose book ‘Bhurajnitiko Bhar’ (Geopolitical burden), was released last year and deals with, among other geo-political issue, the influence exerted by Chinese arms on the media in Kathmandu. He told the Sunday Guardian that China had penetrated the media system in Nepal at a very significant level. “Media and journalists are simply not writing on this issue due to various reasons. However, any negative news related to India and the United States is highlighted massively by the same media. Beijing has managed to bring the Nepalese media under its control and there is no two ways about it,” he said.

He along with a fellow journalist, JB Pun Magar wrote a paper that was published by the Kathmandu based think tank, Centre for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy. In this paper titled, “China’s Influence in Nepali Media Amid Changing Nepal Policy”, the writers have identified the ways in which the Chinese government has infiltrated and brought the Nepali media under its control.

The said report, in great detail, has brought out how China was able to build its influence over media to an extent that even journalists are now acting as spokesperson of Beijing.

(With reporting by Sunday Guardian Live)