Published: November 9, 2013
BEIJING — The Chinese government has rejected the visa application of a veteran American journalist who had been waiting eight months to begin a new reporting job in China for Thomson Reuters, the company said.
The reporter, Paul Mooney, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry told Reuters on Friday that it would not grant him a resident journalist visa but declined to provide a reason. Mr. Mooney returned to the United States last year after the expiration of his previous visa, which was sponsored by The South China Morning Post, a newspaper based in Hong Kong.
The rejection comes at a time of rising tensions between foreign news organizations and the government, which has been using its economic clout, the issuance of visas and Internet controls to express displeasure with coverage it deems unflattering.
“China has been my career,” Mr. Mooney, who has spent three decades covering Asia, the last 18 years based in Beijing, said Saturday in a phone interview. “I never thought it was going to end this way. I’m sad and disappointed.”
The websites for Bloomberg News and The New York Times have been blocked in China for more than a year following the publication of investigative articles by both news organizations that detailed the wealth accumulated by relatives of top Chinese leaders. Since then, employees for both Bloomberg and The Times have been awaiting residency visas that would allow them to report from China.
Such tactics appear to have had an impact. On Saturday, The Times detailed a decision late last month by Bloomberg to withhold publication of an investigative report, more than a year in the works, that explored hidden financial ties between one of China’s wealthiest men and the families of senior Chinese leaders. Company employees said the editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, defended the decision by comparing it to the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus that sought to remain working inside Nazi Germany.
Mr. Winkler and a senior editor denied that the articles had been killed and said they would eventually be published.
The Chinese government’s rejection of Mr. Mooney’s visa request will certainly add to the anxieties of foreign reporters in China, many of whom complain of cyberattacks, police interference and intimidation, especially during the annual visa renewal process, currently underway, which sometimes involves interviews with Foreign Ministry officials or public security personnel.
In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said, “Such delays and lack of transparency merely add to the impression that the visa process is being used by the authorities to intimidate journalists and media organizations.”
Last year, Al Jazeera English shut its Beijing bureau after the authorities refused to renew press credentials and the visa of its China correspondent, Melissa Chan. Although they did not explain the reasons behind Ms. Chan’s expulsion, the first from China in 14 years, it was widely seen as retaliation for her hard-hitting coverage of Chinese society.
An American currently based in San Francisco, Ms. Chan said the Chinese government’s recent efforts to bully some of the largest foreign news organizations would have an insidious trickle-down effect on smaller media outlets, especially those from Southeast Asia and Africa that cannot afford to lose what may be their sole correspondent in China. “It’s got to have a chilling effect that leads to some level of self-censorship,” she said in a phone interview on Saturday.
Mr. Mooney said he suspected that the government’s decision to deny him a visa was punishment for his persistent coverage of human rights abuses in China. In April, after submitting his visa application to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco, he was summoned for an interview, where he was questioned about previous articles and asked to explain his position on delicate issues like Tibet. The interview ended with a barely veiled threat. “They said, ‘If we give you a visa, we hope you’ll be more balanced with your coverage,’ ” he said he was told.
Mr. Mooney, 63, now living in Berkeley, Calif., said Reuters told him that it would not continue pressing China over the issue.
Barb Burg, a spokeswoman for Reuters in New York, said, “We are in the process of considering other posts for Paul within Reuters.” Calls to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing went unanswered.
A version of this article appears in print on November 10, 2013, on page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Reporter For Reuters Won’t Receive China Visa.
