Following the lead of the US Trump administration, the British Embassy in China has taken to Chinese social media to publicly attack the Chinese Communist Party. Recently, the British Ambassador to China, Caroline Wilson, posted a message on the embassy’s official micro-signal criticizing the Chinese Communist Party for suppressing press freedom. The Chinese side later summoned Caroline to protest.
On March 9, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the name of “Head of the Europe Department,” said it had summoned Wu Ruo Lan to “raise serious representations about her inappropriate op-ed on social media.
He also accused Wu’s article of being “full of arrogance and ideological bias” and “causing widespread discontent among the Chinese public,” and asked Wu to “She also asked Wu Ruolan to “reflect on her duties and put herself in the right position.
On the same day, Wu Ruolan responded on Twitter, “I stand by the content of my article. There is no doubt that the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the UK also stands by his more than 170 articles freely published in the British mainstream media.”
Wu Ruolan published a March 2 article on the official micro-signal of the British Embassy in Beijing titled “Do Foreign Media Hate China? which implicitly criticized the CCP for suppressing press freedom as a response to the CCP’s restrictions on the British media, BBC.
In the article, Wu explains in detail the principles of free reporting in the British media and its role in monitoring the misconduct of the British government and the corruption of politicians, and accordingly shows that the foreign media are criticizing the CCP authorities not because they dislike China, but because they are playing a role in monitoring the government, ensuring that people have access to accurate information and speaking out for the weak.
The article mentions that the CCP’s official media is increasingly attacking foreign journalists for their reporting and accusing them of being “anti-China,” and in 2020, the CCP authorities launched the largest expulsion of foreign media in three decades.
Wu also criticized the censoring of former CCTV reporter Chai Jing’s 2015 documentary “Under the Dome,” which exposed air pollution in China, and the “critical” coverage of the Epidemic by the Chinese media, which was limited to what the government allowed. She noted that “many Chinese journalists and businesses support media freedom that allows more space.
After the article was published, it was quickly banned from being shared on WeChat platforms.
The following day, the British Embassy in Beijing provided a venue for the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in China (FCCC) to launch its annual media freedom report. Wu Ruolan noted that the UK is committed to protecting the rights and safety of journalists around the world and urged the Chinese side to also refrain from harassing, intimidating, detaining or threatening to expel journalists.
Last June, the British Embassy in Beijing also issued a “Corrective Note on Hong Kong” on its official micro-signal to rebut attacks on the UK by the Chinese Communist media on the Hong Kong issue. Although the article was deleted two hours after it was posted, it had accumulated 350,000 reads, making it the most widely read of any article posted by the British Embassy in China.
In the new cold war between the Trump Administration and the CCP, the U.S. Embassy in China has also repeatedly attacked the CCP publicly on its official website and official microblogs for suppressing human rights and falsifying propaganda, among other things, which has repeatedly triggered a wave of Chinese netizens.
Recent Comments