Chinese government makes life difficult for international journalists

The Chinese communist party continues to make life difficult for foreign journalists, says the latest report by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC).

It states that international reporters are restricted in where they can travel. Their sources are vulnerable to intimidation, or worse. If they write stories that displease the Chinese government, they face retribution in various forms - threats, effective expulsion by a refusal to renew visas and reprisals against local staff.

According to an FCCC survey of China-based foreign correspondents, 80％ of those surveyed thought that their work conditions had worsened or stayed the same compared to 2013.

On the basis of its evidence, the FCCC argues that China is rapidly eroding the progress it made in "opening up" to the world prior to the 2008 Olympics.

"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," says the report. It continues:

"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 in the opposite direction at home."

The FCCC, which has 243 correspondent members from 31 countries, believes that foreign reporters operating in China should enjoy the same access and freedoms that Chinese reporters enjoy in most other countries.

In advocating the elimination of barriers to free reporting, it wishes to see the establishment of a level playing field and welcomes enhanced dialogue with authorities to agree on standard operating procedures for the coverage of news events.

The FCCC has identified six areas for action: restrictive reporting conditions, interference with news assistants, interference with sources, denial of access to government information, denial of foreign media access to the Chinese market, and punitive immigration policies.

China ranks 175 out of 180 in the 2014 Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Sources: FCCC/Reporters Without Borders Hat tip: CPJ