BEIJING: Although tightly controlled, the Chinese internet space is filling up with hundreds of accusations that India is playing foul by raking up a non-issue over an allegedly fake infiltration by the country’s army. Many users of Weibo , the Chinese Twitter, are demanding that their government “teach India a lesson”.

There are signs of tacit official encouragement of such internet postings, which have been allowed by censors that usually block any campaign against what they regard as “friendly countries”. Experts and journalists connected with state-run bodies are voicing similar opinion. Besides, the Communist Party cadre is known to populate a good part of the internet space.

“Indians fishing in troubled waters? Working hand-in-glove with Japan?” asked a Weibo user going by the tag Mafeijiutong. A large number of web users and an official expert on South Asia are suggesting that India is deliberately trying to damage China’s image at a time when Beijing is engaged in serious disputes with its sea neighbours including Japan. There are suggestions that India has joined a US conspiracy to raise the bogey of “Chinese military threat”.

“It’s worth noting that China’s neighbouring countries, the Philippines, Japan, and Vietnam , are creating trouble and throwing up territorial issues. The speculation in India about Chinese army crossing the line is unwarranted at this point of time,” wrote Fu Xiaoqiang, a South Asia expert in the state-run China Contemporary International Relations Institute, in Huanqiu Shibao. “India should abandon the Cold War mentality, do more to help China-India relations,” Fu added.

As usual, no one is questioning the Chinese government ’s view that its troops did not cross the Line of Actual Control into India.