China calls RSF ‘worst enemy of free press’

The notorious self-acclaimed journalist organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its annual “press freedom index” in April. Not surprisingly, this neither authoritative nor professional group, having frequently shown the public its anti-China stance, ranked China fourth from the bottom.

On May 3, the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, Cedric Alviani, head of RSF’s East Asia Bureau, reportedly openly smeared China as the “worst enemy of freedom of the press and expression.”

It is obvious that the ranking of press freedom done by this group, which is a very subjective and conjectural one, is entirely based on the political preferences of the founder, “a far-right person,” said Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University.

Worse still, observers found that with support from the West, RSF in recent years has become more insatiable in actively meddling in the local media industry and training reporters, including so-called citizen journalists, in the island of Taiwan and other Asian regions in possible political turmoil or social crises.

“Under the disguise of journalism training, what RSF has done is actually a naked interference in the internal affairs of developing countries,” noted Dong.

According to the financial statements published on RSF’s website, it spent a total of 6.726 million euros ($8.18 million) in 2019 on “social missions” including training activities in several overseas offices to assist and support “journalists, bloggers, media and organizations involved as partners carried out by a specific department in the Operations Division.”

In Taiwan, RSF held a media forum on May 3, at which it defamed the media environment in Hong Kong as “deteriorating rapidly.” Local separatists and anti-China journalists from Western countries, including Sweden and Finland, reportedly attended the forum.

Including China, RSF seems particularly active in developing countries while seldom carrying out activities in developed ones, said Steven Dong, professor and dean of the School of Government and Public Affairs under the Communication University of China.

“I suspect that it is no more than an institution sponsored by some developed Western countries to implement political propaganda in less developed areas, through constantly depicting the ‘perfection’ of developed countries and ‘ugliness’ of developing ones,” Dong told the