Beijing In China, foreign correspondents are increasingly being prevented from reporting independently and are subject to increased intimidation. This is the result of the annual survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCC) in the People’s Republic. 99 percent of the correspondents surveyed stated that, in their opinion, the working conditions in China did not meet international standards.
The ever stricter restrictions on foreign correspondents in China are also serious because the domestic media are increasingly being prevented from working by strict laws. The constantly dwindling access to independent reporting is diametrically opposed to the growing importance of the second largest economy in the world.
As a result of the intense pressure, six correspondents have already left China in the past year, the report said. In 2020, China had also expelled 18 correspondents from American media from the country. Due to the restrictive issue of visas, these gaps have not yet been closed. Due to the increasingly adverse circumstances, it is also becoming much more difficult for media organizations to find journalists who still want to report in the country. In a ranking by the organization Reporters Without Borders, the People’s Republic ranks 177th out of 180 countries.
Representatives of foreign media are also worried about the increase in lawsuits against journalists. Communist Party organizations or local authorities call on the correspondents’ interlocutors to sue them for allegedly not agreeing to the reports.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
“In the past, the main tools for controlling the media have been access restrictions, bans from events or problems with press cards and visas,” David Rennie, head of the Beijing bureau of The Economist, is quoted in the report. “The growing use of the law is new and worrying,” said Rennie. It can quickly become dangerous for journalists if they are sued in a court in China. Foreigners involved in civil or criminal lawsuits and judicial proceedings in China may be barred from leaving the country, the report said.
Growing pressure on editorial offices
The Foreign Correspondents Club poll was conducted in December 2021 and draws on responses from 127 of the 192 FCCC members representing news organizations from 30 countries and regions. In addition, interviews were conducted with bureau chiefs from ten news organizations in North America, Australia, Asia and Europe.
According to the mood picture, targeted attacks are also increasing: State media such as “China Daily” regularly accuse foreign correspondents of intentionally misrepresenting China in order to specifically harm the country and its inhabitants. The Chinese embassies abroad also denigrate and attack China correspondents again and again. After the “Spiegel” published a report on the laboratory leak theory about the search for the origin of the corona virus, the Chinese embassy in Berlin sent the editors an outraged five-page letter.
“These criticisms appear to be aimed at pressuring head office editors and managers to restrict objective reporting on China,” the FCCC report said. However, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club found that none of this deterred foreign journalists from their work, nor major global news organizations from pursuing important issues.
Physical attacks against journalists
Targeted propaganda against representatives of foreign media is increasingly leading to targeted attacks against journalists on social media. “Online trolls disproportionately target female journalists of East Asian descent and Chinese staff at foreign news organizations,” the FCCC report said. “The attackers routinely disparage their coverage of China and make crude sexual innuendos, including alarming threats of physical violence.”
In some cases, hate speech online has already resulted in physical attacks against journalists. For example, German TV journalist Mathias Bölinger was physically harassed and insulted by a crowd of angry citizens while reporting on severe flooding in central China in the summer. The youth organization of the Communist Party had previously called for the BBC journalist Robin Brant to be followed and for the authorities to be informed as soon as they saw him. Bölinger was apparently confused with Brant. The German TV journalist has since left China.
In the western Chinese province of Xinjiang in particular, where the Chinese government has been accused of serious human rights violations against the Muslim Uyghur minority, authorities have routinely persecuted and intimidated journalists. 88 percent of correspondents who traveled to this region said they had been persecuted in their research. The Handelsblatt was also shadowed by several investigators during a multi-day research in the province in the summer.
Insufficient information
In individual cases, the pursuers also become violent. A journalist and an employee of the British “Telegraph” were hit in the face by their pursuers while doing research in Xinjiang, according to the report.
But it’s not just cases of extreme violence and intimidation that worry foreign correspondents. Daily reporting, for example about events, is also becoming increasingly difficult. With a view to the Beijing Winter Olympics, which begin on Friday, 60 percent of the survey participants criticized the organizers for insufficient information about events beforehand. 32 percent complained that they had been excluded from events that were open to other media.
China’s barriers to independent reporting are mounting as the world becomes increasingly polarized over China’s rise, the FCCC report said. “The right answer is not to block journalists and make their work more difficult, but to allow more and allow them to report freely,” the club demanded.
More: WTO proceedings against China: Beijing has gambled in the case of Lithuania