BEIJING (AP) – China has banned the BBC World News TV channel from the few outlets where it could be seen in the country in possible retaliation after British regulators revoked the license of Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.
The move on Thursday was largely symbolic, because BBC World was only shown on cable TV systems in hotels and apartment complexes for foreigners and other businesses. But it is deepening foreign news outlets in Beijing’s growing conflict with Western governments following the expulsion of journalists from American newspapers last year.
The National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News’s coverage of China violated the requirements for the news to be true and unbiased. He accused the BBC of undermining China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
The Chinese government has criticized the BBC’s reports of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern Xinjiang region, where there are Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
“The channel does not meet the requirements to broadcast in China as a foreign channel,” the Radio and Television Administration said in a midnight statement on Friday.
He gave no indication as to whether BBC journalists in China would be affected.
Last year, the Beijing Communist government expelled foreign journalists from The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times during disputes with the Trump administration.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, in a written statement, described the measure as “an unacceptable restriction on media freedom” that “would only harm China’s reputation in the eyes of the world.”
The Chinese embassy, in response to Raab, defended the decision as “legitimate and reasonable” and accused the BBC of “malicious attacks” against China’s ruling communist party.
“We urge the BBC to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop fabricating and spreading misinformation,” the embassy said in a statement.
The Club of Foreign Correspondents of China expressed concern over the accusation that the BBC hurt “national interests” and “national unity”.
This could be a “warning to foreign media operating in China that they may suffer sanctions if their reports do not follow the Chinese party’s line on Xinjiang and other ethnic minority regions,” the group said in a statement.
In Hong Kong, government broadcaster RTHK said it would stop broadcasting BBC World broadcasts on Friday. He cited the order of the main regulator, which applied to all Chinese territory.
The measure reflects the Communist Party’s greater control over the former British colony over the past two years. This has led to complaints that Beijing is violating Western-style autonomy and civil liberties that Hong Kong promised itself when it returned to China in 1997.
On February 4, the British communications watchdog, Ofcom, revoked the license of CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, which cited links to the Communist Party among other reasons.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Ofcom acted for “political reasons based on ideological bias.”
The loss of the British license was a setback for CGTN, which is part of the party’s efforts to promote its views abroad. CGTN has a European operations center in London.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called it worrying that media operations were restricted in China while “Beijing leaders use free and open media environments abroad to promote misinformation. “.
Price called on the Chinese government to allow its people free access to the media and the Internet.
“Freedom of the media is an important right and is key to ensuring an informed citizenry, an informed citizenry that can share their ideas freely among themselves and with their leaders,” Price said.