12 September, 2014 (04:00)
September 2014
Executive summary
China’s ruling Communist Party continues to erect hurdles to foreign journalists, and the media companies that employ them, discouraging reporting on many aspects of China. Foreign journalists are restricted in where they can travel. Their sources are vulnerable to intimidation or worse. If they or their co-workers write stories that displease the Chinese government, they face retribution. This could come in the form of threats, effective expulsion (visas not being renewed), retribution against news assistants and reprisals against a journalist’s media company that has business interests in China. In an FCCC survey this year of China-based foreign correspondents, 80％of those surveyed thought that their work conditions had worsened or stayed the same compared to 2013. The FCCC believes that China is rapidly eroding the progress it made in “opening up” to the world prior to the 2008 Olympics.
About the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC)
The FCCC has 243 correspondent members from 31 countries. It was founded in 1981 and its objectives are to promote friendship and professional exchange among foreign correspondents stationed in China, to promote professionalism in journalism and to defend the ideals of freedom of the press and the free exchange of information.
Introduction
In the years since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, there has been a notable increase in threats and use of violence against foreign journalists, their staff, and their sources; China’s restrictive and punitive visa practices have severely hampered global news organizations’ coverage of China. In 2014, China is further away from making good on its pre-Olympic pledges to uphold a “policy of opening up to the outside world” and to protect the lawful rights of foreign journalists.
China’s poor record on allowing open and unfettered reporting is in conflict with its desire to be seen as a modern society deserving of global respect. And it is in great contrast with the wide access Chinese journalists have enjoyed when reporting in many foreign countries.
Yet as China embraces and leverages press freedoms abroad for its own media, it is going the opposite direction at home. Authorities maintain strict control and censorship over domestic journalists. China’s policies toward and treatment of the international media have not matched the nation’s advances toward international norms in other areas.
China is the world’s second largest economy and is re-establishing itself as a global power. The nation is rapidly urbanizing, and economic policies are evolving from a manufacturing orientation toward a greater focus on service and information industries. Chinese state-owned and private enterprises are expanding overseas.
China’s 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) emphasizes the “culture sector,” including media and entertainment, as a growth industry. The government is investing billions of dollars in creating more market-oriented media conglomerates it hopes will compete for global influence with media giants in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, with the aim of improving its image and exerting greater soft power. China has taken advantage of press freedoms in other countries to build up state-run media brands, including CCTV and China Daily.
The FCCC advocates a free reporting environment for all. Foreign reporters in China should enjoy the same access and freedoms that Chinese reporters enjoy in most other countries. Media organizations should enjoy the same freedom to disseminate their work in China that Chinese media organizations enjoy in most other countries. The FCCC advocates the elimination of barriers to free reporting and the establishment of a level playing field. The FCCC welcomes enhanced dialogue with authorities to improve mutual understanding and work out standard operating procedures for smoother coverage of news events.
Recent Background
Before 2007, foreign journalists could not travel freely in China and had to work with specially assigned government officials to do their reporting outside of the city to which they were officially assigned.
A major breakthrough for foreign journalists working in China came during the run-up to the Olympics. New reporting rules issued in December 2006 were made permanent in October 2008.
According to these regulations, journalists should be able to travel freely throughout China (except to the Tibet Autonomous Region) and interview any individual willing to be interviewed. Unfortunately, the rules have never been fully enforced, and following the Olympics the situation has steadily deteriorated. Large areas of the country, such as Tibetan-inhabited regions outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region, are effectively off-limits to foreign reporters, and journalists traveling to Xinjiang are effectively blocked from free reporting by authorities who often trail them and intimidate interviewees. In other provinces, journalists have been met by officials who declare an area is closed to foreign reporters.
