China continues to expand its crackdown and persecution of foreign journalists covering the forced labor controversy in Xinjiang.
Following the forced evacuation of BBC reporter John Sudworth from Beijing and his transfer to Taipei, Chinese-Australian journalist Vicky Xu has become the latest target of a major Chinese foreign propaganda network.
Xu, a 90-year-old journalist, has been attacked by more than a dozen official Chinese Communist Party media since early April, using terms such as “demon woman and traitor woman” and falsely accusing her of being the “originator of the Xinjiang cotton”, sparking the latest wave of online storms on microblogs and other social media. .
Although both journalists declined to be interviewed by the media, Sha Lei called attention to the “asymmetric media war” waged by China through a written statement.
Xu Xiuzhong, who is originally from Gansu, tweeted that he would continue to report on Xinjiang, “until the training center closes and until forced labor ends.”
China Cracks Down on Foreign Media Reporters
In response, Reporters Without Borders East Asia Executive Cedric Alviani and two foreign journalists with experience working in China unanimously called on the governments of democratic countries to take immediate joint action against China’s ongoing crackdown on press freedom and the continued persecution and imprisonment of foreign journalists and Chinese citizen journalists in an interview with the Voice of America.
It is clear that over the past year, the Chinese government has become increasingly unwilling to have foreign journalists in China to provide direct access to and monitor its governance, said Evian.
The regime has repeatedly harassed foreign journalists to make sure they can’t report (the truth),” Ai said. (BBC reporter) Sha Lei was forced to leave China as a direct result of such harassment. In the past year alone, China has expelled a total of 18 foreign media reporters. This is totally unacceptable.”
Sha Lei, a BBC journalist who has worked in Beijing for nine years, has been subjected to intense pressure and threats for covering sensitive topics such as the origin of China’s new crown virus, cotton in Xinjiang and forced labor for Uighurs. Sha Lei confirmed last week that he and his wife, Yvonne Murray, who is also a journalist for the Irish public broadcaster RTE, and their three young children had left Beijing and transferred to Taipei after Chinese security forces followed them all the way to the airport. He said the couple will continue to cover China from Taipei in the future.
The BBC previously tweeted a statement: “Sha Lei’s work reveals a truth the Chinese authorities don’t want the world to know.”
BBC reporter forced to leave Beijing
Sha Lei, for his part, published an article last Friday (April 2) titled “The Grim Reality Of Reporting In China That Pushed Me Out”.
He said he was the latest example of foreign media pulling out of China, part of a global war of ideas and information waged by China.
Since taking power in 2012, he writes, “(Chinese President) Xi Jinping has used China’s rigid political system to tighten control at nearly every level of society …… The media has become a representative battleground under his presidency.”
He said the foreign media’s space to report in China is tightening, but China’s “war wolf” diplomats are able to enjoy a free and open media platform overseas, tweeting against the BBC or other foreign media reports.
In this context, he said, “My departure can be seen as part of an emerging, highly asymmetrical war of thought control …… Having less access to China will diminish our understanding of China’s reality, but China is able to use the system of free media outside the country to undermine its democratic debate.”
Foreign media creating fake news about Xinjiang?
Sha Lei’s withdrawal from Beijing due to “security concerns” drew attacks from Chinese officials and party media such as the Global Times. At one point, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying mocked, “What’s he running for?”
Hua said that some people and companies in Xinjiang allegedly intend to sue Sha Lei because of his “fake news” related to Xinjiang, resulting in damage to their interests, but she said that this is a private action and has nothing to do with the official.
In a regular press conference last Thursday (April 1), Hua Chunying further attacked the Foreign Correspondent Club in China in Beijing as an “illegal organization that does not talk about right and wrong or principles.”
The Global Times also followed up the official narrative with a biased report claiming that Sha Lei had “fled” Beijing and was “hiding” in Taiwan, as if he were a fugitive from justice.
In response, Wei-Ang Ai of Reporters Without Borders said that foreign journalists have formed associations around the world to network and share information with each other. But only in totalitarian countries such as China are they considered “illegal” because China uses registration to pressure and harass foreign journalists.
China Jails Hundreds of Journalists
He said it is increasingly difficult for journalists like Sha Lei to report independently in China, and that those who insist on telling the truth in particular often face jail time. According to Reporters Without Borders, China has so far jailed some 120 media workers, including citizen journalists.
Ai Wei’ang called on democratic governments to adopt a united front as soon as possible to resist China’s attacks on universal values such as freedom of the press and expression, as well as the persecution of media workers.
The EU issued a statement on Friday (April 2), following the transfer of Sha Lei to Taipei, condemning the harassment of journalists working in China by Beijing authorities. The statement said, “The EU is continuously concerned about the undue work restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities on foreign journalists and the related reports of harassment.”
In addition to Sha Lei, China has also launched an online attack on Chinese-Australian journalist Xu Xiuzhong, using unpleasant terms such as “demoness and traitoress” to describe the journalist, who graduated from China’s Communication University and now works for major international media in Sydney, Australia.
According to Xu’s 15 recent Chinese Twitter posts, she began writing about forced labor in Xinjiang and the experiences of the Uyghur community in 2017. The English-language stories, which were published by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and the New York Times, were intended, she said, to “set the stage for history.
In March last year, the Australian Institute for Strategic Studies, where she works, released a study, “Uyghurs on Sale,” alleging that the Chinese government was sending Uyghurs to forced labor across the country under the banner of “aid to Xinjiang,” naming the supply chains of 83 companies, including Nike and Apple, as being involved.
She said the report did not mention the issue of Xinjiang cotton, but recently, a large number of Chinese media reports have falsely accused her of being the “originator of Xinjiang cotton” and made negative character attacks against her.
Online attack on Chinese-Australian journalists
She tweeted, “If there was a hint of silence before, it’s gone after the whole internet storm. I had to keep writing until the “Education and Training Center” closed, until the end of forced labor, until the end of time. From my personal point of view, the right thing to do is to continue, and the price to pay is worth it. I owe it to the people around me to do the right thing, and I’m going to pay it back.”
She added, “The root cause of the ‘education and training centers’ that hold Uyghurs and other minorities is the complete destruction of the Uyghur people and culture by the Han-led government.”
Xu Xiuzhong said state security agents have coerced her family in China, including detention, interrogation, harassment and isolation. Late last year, she said, a state security agent calling himself Detective “Thomas” also slut-shamed her by spreading pornographic novel-like “sex life” stories on Youtube in broken English.
In an interview with Voice of America, Steve Chao, a former Al Jazeera host and now an independent media personality, said that the increasingly restrictive reporting environment for legally accredited journalists in China is hampering the exchange of ideas and information, and that the growing ideological confrontation between China and the West is a very disappointing trend. These are all very disappointing trends and developments.
Disappointing trends
The biggest challenge for the Chinese government is whether they can separate Western governments from the independent media,” says Zhao. China often sees the foreign media as a wing of Western governments and ignores their independence.”
In addition to differences in media perceptions, he says that as China grows, it is increasingly reinforcing its one-sided claims on Xinjiang and other issues, and is not afraid to challenge views outside its borders that differ from its own.
This is a new trend, says Zhao, “where China is silencing dissenting views through lawsuits, driving journalists away and discrediting them or scholars, in addition to making its own claims.”
Ideas and expressions were originally a source of progress for a society, but now, he says, it is extremely absurd that we seem to have entered an “era of strawberry people” who are easily frustrated by different ideas or expressions; and this fear and mentality of dissent and ideas is not only in China, but also in other countries such as India or on social media. It can also be felt in other countries such as India or on social media.
Zhao calls on the international community to take a “united stand against” China’s restrictions on media freedom and urge China to continue to open up because, he says, the more restrictions China places on the media, the harder it will be for the media to properly report on China, which, in a vicious cycle, will only increase misunderstandings or misperceptions about China, which is actually detrimental to China. This vicious cycle will only increase more misconceptions or misperceptions about China, which is actually not good for China.
The Chilling Effect of Self-Censorship
Another senior foreign media reporter, who wished to remain anonymous, also told VOA that China is particularly sensitive to the media in the Five Eyes countries (i.e., the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand), viewing them as wings of the government and not accepting their independence. The journalist, who was based in Beijing from 2014-2019 and is now working in Hong Kong, said there are few media outlets in China that are independent of the party-state, and as a result, the Chinese government quite habitually views journalists as vassals of the government, ignoring the fact that journalists play the same role in all countries and are all monitoring the duties of those in power.
He said that if China is not imprisoning Uighurs or hiding the truth, why doesn’t it open up Xinjiang and let the outside world in? He said, “In my experience, whenever you refuse to open up or open up only to a limited extent, it means you are hiding something and you don’t want the world to see the truth.”
He said that the increasingly severe restrictions in China have caused problems for his work, especially the fact that interviewees can be detained, and have led him to a “self-censorship” mentality or “chilling effect” in order to protect interviewees or fear persecution for himself. This, he said, is not conducive to the truth or the presentation of the real China.
Recent Comments