Robert Hutton, a U.K.-based Bloomberg reporter who was part of the press corps travelling with British Prime Minister David Cameron on his visit to China, was told at the last minute that it “would not be appropriate” for him to attend a joint press conference given by Mr Cameron and Premier Li Keqiang on December 2. The Chinese authorities denied Hutton was targeted, saying the following day that the site’s capacity was “limited” after Cameron expressed concern that a journalist was being blocked from attending the press conference. The following day, Fortune magazine reported that the Chinese authorities had in fact made “inspections” of Bloomberg’s Beijing and Shanghai bureaus towards the end of November in which officials demanded an apology for a comment reportedly made by Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler. Winkler reportedly compared the Chinese government to Nazi Germany while he was defending himself against accusations that he had imposed self-censorship within Bloomberg by stopping publication of an article about a Chinese tycoon and his ties to the families of Communist Party leaders.
(Source: IFJ Press Freedom in China Campaign Bulletin – December)