Empire State Today

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) on Monday said there has been a decline in media freedom caused by China's use of coronavirus prevention measures, intimidation, and visa curbs to limit foreign reporting.

In its annual report, the FCCC said that a survey of 150 journalists showed conditions had not improved for the third year in a row. 

“All arms of state power — including surveillance systems introduced to curb coronavirus — were used to harass and intimidate journalists, their Chinese colleagues, and those whom the foreign press sought to interview,” it said as reported by The Epoch Times. 

Visa restrictions were used to put pressure on reporters with some being denied access to sensitive areas and threatened with forced quarantine by Chinese authorities, the report stated. 

Thirteen correspondents were given press credentials valid for 6 months or less. Foreign reporters typically receive one-year visas which must be renewed annually, the FCCC, said according to The Epoch Times.

Spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin called the report baseless on Monday.

“We always welcome media and journalists from all countries to cover news in China according to the law … what we oppose is ideological bias against China and fake news in the name of press freedom,” he said, during a daily news briefing.

Australia helped two of its foreign correspondents leave China after they were questioned by the country’s state security ministry in September last year.

Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen working for Chinese state media, and later Haze Fan, a Chinese national working for Bloomberg News, were both detained on suspicion of endangering national security.

A dozen foreign journalists from U.S. media organizations were also expelled. This has been taken as a tit-for-tat between China and the U.S. as Washington also cut down on the number of foreign journalists working at four major Chinese state-owned media outlets.