The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China is dismayed that so many foreign correspondents were denied the opportunity to attend the presentation of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the new CPC Central Committee on Thursday morning.
While appreciating that a lack of space meant it was not possible to invite all the foreign correspondents accredited to the 18th Party Congress, we note that a number of news organizations which had in the past been invited to such events, among them The New York Times and Bloomberg News, were not given invitations this time.
The FCCC would be very concerned if the Chinese authorities had decided to exclude them in response to their recent coverage of Chinese political leaders.
The FCCC asks that in future the Chinese authorities be more transparent in explaining the criteria by which they select invitees for official events such as Thursday’s presentation of the new PBSC.