Foreign journalists are facing state-sponsored interference while reporting in China, despite Olympic-related rules aimed at allowing greater press freedoms, an international media organization said yesterday.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China said it welcomed rules that went into effect a year ago yesterday, but had recorded more than 180 incidences of journalists' work being interfered with last year.
"While the year-old regulations have improved overall reporting conditions for foreign journalists, we are particularly troubled by repeated violations in several areas," club president Melinda Liu (
She cited areas in Beijing and China's northern Hebei Province "where plainclothes thugs have intimidated or physically assaulted foreign journalists" and demanded that such incidents be investigated.
In one case, three reporters were assaulted in two separate incidents while investigating a makeshift prison in suburban Beijing where petitioners who had come to the capital to air their grievances were allegedly being illegally detained.
Journalists working in Tibet and China's westernmost Xinjiang region also said they were followed or detained, or their sources were intimidated, the group said.
Other journalists were being routinely detained, roughed up and questioned while investigating social unrest or local disturbances, it said.
The new rules were meant to allow foreign reporters freedom to conduct interviews with consenting Chinese parties, rather than having to first seek government permission.
Under the new rules, journalists are also to be allowed to report outside the city for which they are accredited, rather than having to seek permission from city authorities.
The rules are set to expire at the end of the Olympic period in October, but a top media official last week said that they may be extended indefinitely.
China's media are tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which routinely censors news deemed to be negative in content or news that shines a bad light on the country's one-party political rule.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS