September 8, 2020
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China strongly condemns the Chinese government’s unprecedented harassment and intimidation of two Australian journalists by preventing them from leaving the country, leading both to flee China after a diplomatic standoff ended in a lifting of the bans.
The effort to keep foreign journalists in China against their will marks a significant escalation of an ongoing, sustained Chinese government assault on media freedoms.
The FCCC denounces this extraordinary erosion of media freedoms leading foreign journalists to fear that they could be targets of China’s hostage diplomacy.
Late last Wednesday, Chinese state security officers visited the homes of Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bill Birtles in Beijing and the Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith in Shanghai.
The officers informed them that they were barred from leaving China and ordered them to be questioned in connection with an alleged national security investigation into Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist for Chinese state broadcaster CGTN detained in August, and about whose case the Chinese authorities have provided almost no information whatsoever.
Mr. Birtles and Mr. Smith then sheltered at the Australian embassy and consulate while diplomats negotiated with Chinese officials to guarantee that neither would be detained if they were interrogated, and to secure their subsequent safe departure from the country. Both correspondents were then questioned by Chinese security before being allowed to leave.
Such actions by the Chinese government amount to appalling intimidatory tactics that threaten and seek to curtail the work of foreign journalists based in China, who now face the threat of arbitrary detention for simply doing their work, and difficult circumstances that make it untenable to remain in the country.
For the second time in as many days, the FCCC again strongly opposes the use of foreign journalists as pawns in wider diplomatic disputes.
The FCCC is saddened to note that with the departures of Mr. Birtles and Mr. Smith, not a single accredited foreign journalist remains in China for Australian news organizations.
This, combined with the expulsions of 17 foreign correspondents in the first half of this year alone, is a disappointing loss for global audiences seeking to understand more about China.