The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) has published its annual media freedoms report, ‘Track, Trace, Expel: Reporting on China Amid a Pandemic’.
For the third consecutive year, not a single correspondent surveyed for the report said conditions improved.
The report finds China has used the coronavirus pandemic as yet another way to significantly frustrate the work of foreign correspondents in China.
New surveillance systems and strict controls on movement – implemented for public health reasons – have been used to control foreign journalists. On many occasions, correspondents were forced to abandon reporting trips after being told to leave or be quarantined on the spot.
Chinese authorities have dramatically stepped-up efforts in 2020 to constrain the work of foreign correspondents.
All arms of state power were used to harass and intimidate journalists in their professional and personal lives, their Chinese colleagues, and those whom the foreign press sought to interview.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its embassies, and official state media have ramped up attacks against specific journalists and organizations.
Foreign correspondents have seen their work distorted and misrepresented, or attacked with fabricated charges, including baseless allegations that people interviewed by foreign news outlets were actors paid by foreign intelligence services.
China has also deployed a new tactic in its longstanding practice of weaponizing visas. Since September 2020, Chinese authorities have refused to issue new press cards to correspondents accredited with U.S. news organizations.
The report’s other main findings from 2020 include
- In the first half of 2020, China expelled at least 18 foreign journalists from the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
- One in six correspondents reported being forced to live and work in China on a series of short visas of between one and three months in duration. Some Chinese tourist visas last longer than that.
- China has used the coronavirus pandemic to create more restrictions for the foreign press – restrictions that exceed those for everyone else. 21% said they were locked out last year, and journalists are the only group of resident permits holders still barred from entering China.
- Local authorities increasingly use the threat of quarantine to prevent reporting. 42% of respondents said they were told to leave a place or were denied access for health and safety reasons when they presented no risk.
- State harassment of our Chinese colleagues has reached an alarming level. 59% of respondents said this happened in 2020 (compared to 44% in 2019 and 43% in 2018). 60% had to up security procedures to support Chinese colleagues.
- Informational access is diminishing. 88% said interviews were cancelled by subjects who were barred from speaking to a foreign journalist. This represents an increase from 76% in 2019.
- China actively stymies reporting in border regions, including Tibet. 94% of journalists who travelled to Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia last year experienced state obstruction.
- Hackers are increasingly exploiting our reliance on digital communications. 40% of correspondents said they had reason to believe their internet accounts had been targeted in attempted hacks in 2020.
Please find the full report here: Download
This report is based on a survey of journalists who belong to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China in Beijing and the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Conducted in December 2020, 150 of 220 correspondent members representing news organizations from 30 countries and regions responded to the survey.
Percentages reflect the proportion of responses to a specific question. Not all respondents answered every question. Additional interviews with bureau chiefs at 21 news organizations headquartered in North America, Australia, Asia and Europe, were conducted for this report.
For data citations, please credit the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC), a Beijing-based professional association whose members include correspondents from 30 countries and regions.