‘Track, trace, expel’: How China treated foreign journalists

BEIJING: Working conditions for journalists continued to decline in China in 2020 with the government harassing, intimidating and expelling reporters from the country using all arms of state power, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said in its annual report on Monday.

The report said China expelled the largest number of foreign journalists since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 - at least 18 foreign journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post were expelled.

“All arms of state power including surveillance systems introduced to curb coronavirus were used to harass and intimidate journalists, their Chinese colleagues, and those whom the foreign press sought to interview,” the report said.

“Visas became a tit-for-tat fight, as the US government capped visa numbers for Chinese journalists in America, leading to the departure of scores of Chinese, many of whom worked for state media.”

The report - Trace, Trace, Expel: Reporting on China Amid a Pandemic - said that for the third consecutive year, not a single correspondent said working conditions had improved.

As many as 150 of 220 correspondent members representing news organisations from 30 countries and regions were interviewed.

China, the report added, used the pandemic to control journalists. New surveillance systems and strict controls on movement, implemented for public health reasons, were used to limit foreign journalists, it said.

“On many occasions, correspondents were forced to abandon reporting trips after being told to leave or be quarantined on the spot,” the report added.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed it as “baseless”.

“We always welcome media and journalists from all countries to cover news in China according to the law... what we oppose is ideological bias against China and fake news in the name of press freedom,” Wang told Reuters news agency.