It’s Getting Harder to Report in China, Foreign Journalists Say

(Bloomberg) -- Increased surveillance and government interference with reporting amid a crackdown on Xinjiang's Muslims fueled a “significant deterioration” in the work environment for correspondents in China last year, the country's foreign journalists' organization said.

Reporting grew much harder in the far western region, where the detention and “re-education” of up to 1 million minority Muslim Uighurs has attracted global outcry, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in its new report “Under Watch: Reporting in China's Surveillance State.”

Read our account of 10 days reporting on the ground in Xinjiang

A survey of the group's members and interviews with local bureau chiefs from major media organizations “painted the darkest picture of reporting conditions inside China in recent memory,” the FCCC said.

China's foreign ministry criticized the report on Tuesday, saying it was willing to provide support for correspondents' reporting.

“I don't think that kind of report can reflect the views of the foreign correspondents in China and it is not worth refuting,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a briefing in Beijing. “The issuance of this kind of report and the making of such groundless accusations against China is not constructive and it will not help to resolve the relevant issues.”

Key Insights

• Foreign journalists said surveillance had become a top concern. Nearly half of the FCCC's respondents said they had been followed or had a hotel room entered without permission. 91 percent said they were concerned about the security of their phones.
• They said Chinese colleagues and sources were pressured, harassed or intimidated. Some sources were called in for questioning by authorities.
• 55 percent of those surveyed said they believed reporting conditions deteriorated in 2018, compared to 40 percent the previous year.
• 24 out of 27 of respondents who went to Xinjiang said they experienced interference while there and 19 said they were asked or forced to delete data.
• For the first time in three years, a foreign correspondent was effectively expelled from China through visa denial. Six correspondents said they had visa renewal troubles related to their coverage of news events. China also gave five correspondents shortened visas and reporting credentials. 

--With assistance from David Ramli.

To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Leigh in Hong Kong at kleigh4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Ruth Pollard

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