China has used extra surveillance and restrictions ostensibly imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic to block the work of foreign reporters already struggling with threats of detention and punitive visa restrictions, a press group said yesterday.
As the country has largely brought the COVID-19 outbreak under control since it emerged in late 2019, Beijing has raced to promote an official narrative of heroism and success in its early handling of the pandemic.
“As China’s propaganda machine struggled to regain control of the narrative around this public health disaster, foreign press outlets were repeatedly obstructed in their attempts to cover the pandemic,” the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said in its annual report, based on a survey of 150 of its 220 members.
“China has used the pandemic as yet another way to control journalists,” it said.
Strict COVID-19 measures have been regularly used to block or threaten reporters, the media group said, with about 42 percent of respondents saying they had been made to leave an area or denied access for health and safety reasons.
The FCCC said journalists were asked to comply with measures that were not required of others, and that the introduction of COVID-19 checkpoints and contact tracing apps had created “additional opportunities for Chinese authorities to gather data and surveil foreign journalists and their sources.”
Sources like medical staff in the city of Wuhan — where COVID-19 first surfaced — were interrogated by authorities or warned against accepting interviews, reporters said.
For a third straight year, none of the respondents said working conditions had improved.
Asked about the report, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said that it was “presumptuous, alarmist and has zero factual basis.”
“We have always welcomed media and journalists from all countries to carry out interviews and reporting in China, in accordance with laws and regulations,” Wang said.
“We oppose ideological prejudice targeting China, the concoction of fake news under the pretext of so-called media freedom, and behavior that violates journalistic ethics,” he added.
As relations worsened between China and several Western countries, last year also saw “the largest expulsion of foreign journalists since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre more than three decades ago,” the FCCC said.
In the second half of the year, foreign journalists became “pawns in a diplomatic spat” when state security officers told two Australian media correspondents they were barred from leaving the country, it said.
The pair sought refuge in Australian diplomatic missions before fleeing the country.
Since September last year, authorities have stopped issuing new press cards to US news organizations’ correspondents as relations worsened between the two countries, the FCCC said.
The survey also warned that foreign news outlets have been targeted in disinformation campaigns by state media, including claims that their interviewees were paid actors.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique