Beijing looks to ban private news media
Independent journalism outlets in China under threat as state tightens restrictions on free speech
CHINA may ban all news media not funded directly by the Communist Party under new rules that are likely to further limit freedom of speech.
Beijing published a draft law saying that privately funded organisations “shall not engage in news-gathering, editing and broadcasting”.
Officials have not confirmed whether the new rules will apply to foreign news organisations operating in China, effectively making them illegal.
The move nevertheless indicates that Beijing may be preparing to exercise even greater control and monitoring of news, much of which is already statecontrolled, further shrinking the platform for public scrutiny.
The proposed rules ban private media-related businesses as part of a “prohibited” list of industries.
“The 2021 list is a very broad ban on everything relating to the news media sector, while the 2020 list does allow non-public capital participation, subject to equity caps,” said Henry Gao, an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University.
Although it remains unclear if foreign news outlets, including The Daily Telegraph, will be affected, local outlets are now likely to face an even more uncertain future.
The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong daily newspaper owned by the tech tycoon Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, could potentially be affected.
It has been rumoured for years that Mr Ma, one of the richest people in China, was under pressure from authorities to offload media assets such as the SCMP out of concern that such ownership would mean he could wield competing influence against the state.
In general, restrictions have been tightening for years. Government censors routinely scrub the internet for anything deemed by officials to be “sensitive”. Virtually all media organisations are state-run, falling directly under government purview.
Party directives are issued to state media newsrooms instructing how coverage ought to be executed – what topics are allowed, for instance.
The rise of the internet led to new platforms and methods of disseminating information, including live-streaming and social media sites that allowed for self-publishing, such as blog posts, status updates and mass distribution within online groups.
Some outlets – such as Caixin Media, a financial news outlet backed by Tencent, a tech firm, Guancha, a pro-government news website financed by Eric Li, a venture capitalist, and the SCMP – have also long existed in a grey area.
The draft document, which is open for public comment for a week, comes at a time when China has introduced a spate of regulations cracking down on industries across the board, affecting everything from ecommerce to afterschool tutoring. In 2016, Xi Jinping, the party leader, visited the newsrooms of state media outlets and demanded “absolute loyalty”, instructing them to “love the party, protect the party” and closely align themselves with the leadership in “thought, politics and action”.
Independent journalists posting online who go against the official narrative are regularly disappeared and detained by the authorities.
Those who had sought to disseminate information from Wuhan at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, including Chen Qiushi, Zhang Zhan and Fang Bin, all remain missing or continue to be held by Chinese authorities.
The government has also significantly ramped up its criticism and threats against foreign news outlets, with the foreign ministry and state media trolling specific journalists and outlets, including
‘The 2021 list is a very broad ban on everything related to the news media sector’