Policemen stand in formation as they guard on the bund where people were killed in a stampede incident during a new year’s celebration, in Shanghai, on Jan. 3. Chinese state media and the public criticised the government and police on Friday for failing to prevent the stampede in Shanghai that killed 36 people and dented the city’s image as modern China’s global financial hub. (China Stringer Network/Reuters)
January 22
BEIJING — Zhang Miao has now been in prison for almost four months.
She is a Chinese researcher for a German newspaper in China, and her arrest has sparked fear, outrage and some soul-searching among foreign news organizations in China about the role of their Chinese assistants.
Reporting from China has become increasingly difficult and harrowing in recent years for both Chinese and foreign media, with a sweeping crackdown on press freedom since China’s President Xi Jinping took power.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, China had more journalists in prison last year than any other country. Most were Chinese citizens.
For years, the most common threat to foreign news outlets has been expulsion. But increasingly, Chinese authorities are attacking news bureaus at their most vulnerable point: their dependence on Chinese citizens who translate and facilitate their coverage.
Security personnel order an accredited foreign journalist to stop filming in front of the entrance to Bobo Freedom Village where Chinese dissident Zeng Jinyan lives under unofficial house arrest on October 10, 2008 in Beijing. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
Zhang Miao’s case — detailed for the first time by the German newspaper, Die Zeit, last week — shocked many because of how aggressively authorities have punished Zhang and threatened the German reporter she worked with.
“It’s a scary thing for all of us because it shows how serious and how far authorities will go if they want to create a case against you,” said a U.S. reporter, speaking anonymously to avoid drawing government scrutiny.
