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Foreign journalists in China facing unprecedented pressure: media group

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The report said that as journalists left due to excessive intimidation or state expulsions, covering China is "increasingly becoming an exercise in remote reporting".

This is terrible. When media takes control over the Journalist and people who post responses to the news is just despicable. Happy we don't have that here in Japan. But, do we?

-1 ( +8 / -9 )

Such moves foster growing feelings that foreign media are the enemy, the report added, noting that "coverage of China is suffering".

I can't imagine why.

What country would want openly hostile media that just makes things up? If I am being generous, at best they publish stories without any fact checking "Oh, that was a school not a concentration camp? Oops, sorry!" or actively publish positive stories in a negative light. At worst they are just making hit pieces.

Of COURSE people are going to see foreign media as the enemy in those cases. The last time mainstream media did much honest reporting about China was probably the Tiananmen Square incident, and most of those reports have since been disregarded because it didn't fit the narrative.

Though writing that, now it does even call into question how accurate the report even is. When you cry wolf so many times, it becomes hard to take you seriously anymore.

-19 ( +5 / -24 )

The message is loud and clear: the Communist party does not want foreign journalists inside the dictatorship - period.

Once they are gone, who else will report on the mass genocide, "disappearances" of dissenters, criminal actions committed by the elite, and all other human rights abuses within China?

No-one.

18 ( +22 / -4 )

The best thing that could happen would be if all the foreign journalists and media-including NBC- just packed up and left before the opening ceremony. NBC can play reruns of Judge Judy and the CCP can stand around their big, new stadiums unnoticed by the world.

15 ( +16 / -1 )

...and in today's other news, water is found to be wet.

Seriously, is it any wonder that an authoritarian regime would seek to limit press freedom? This is the country that started internal passports and social credit scores. Displease the government and you are not allowed to fly, shop, or use the internet.

13 ( +14 / -1 )

Controlling the media is a major characteristic of fascist governments.

Michael MachidaToday  01:39 pm JST

Happy we don't have that here in Japan. But, do we?

If we did you'd be hearing about it all the time in the world media. All governments have some degree of influence over the media in their countries. But few to the extent of the Chinese dictatorship.

4 ( +12 / -8 )

@Fighto!

Once they are gone, who else will report on the mass genocide, "disappearances" of dissenters, criminal actions committed by the elite, and all other human rights abuses within China?

As nice as it sounds to think they would stop all of that as soon as they are gone, I am sure not having access to firsthand sources isn't going to stop them making up all that stuff and more, don't worry.

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

another antichinese article.

bad China very bad...

i am sad as your average is 3 a day and today this is first one...you can do better.

btw did you find news from Ottawa/I mean in my comment you have "removed" again/?

-13 ( +1 / -14 )

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

Japan is 67th, behind Buthan, Niger, Ivory Coast, Guyana, Senegal ...

Nothing to be proud of !

0 ( +1 / -1 )

zichiToday  03:41 pm JST

OssanAmerica

Previously you have called China communist, communist dictator, and now fascist.

Which is it?

None of those are mutually exclusive. You know very well that China displays characteristics that can be attributed to all of those terms.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

The CCP primary agenda is their retention of power at all costs to anyone else. Controlling the flow of information to their masses is a primary tool for their retention of power (and all the perks that go with it), so a free reporting of the actual facts especially if they flatly contradict the fairy stories propagated by the CCP, with the very real danger those reports might filter back in to the misinformation bubble maintained by the state media, is anathema to them.

The eventual removal of all free media reporters from the country would suit them very well, alowing them to further manipulate the story they wish to sell to the world without factual refutation embarrassing their propaganda lies.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

None of those are mutually exclusive. You know very well that China displays characteristics that can be attributed to all of those terms.

Communist and fascist are literally exact opposites, you couldn't find any two concepts in politics that are more mutually exclusive. It is actually far left vs far right.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

None of those are mutually exclusive. You know very well that China displays characteristics that can be attributed to all of those terms.

China is not communist.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Michael MachidaJan. 31  01:39 pm JST

The report said that as journalists left due to excessive intimidation or state expulsions, covering China is "increasingly becoming an exercise in remote reporting".

This is terrible. 

Of course, it is. What would you expect from a totalitarian nation with such a sorry human rights record like Communist China? Myanmar is also a totalitarian nation and they pull the same bull on foreign journalists. In fact, in Myanmar no foreigner can stay there longer than 19 hours.

Why is that, folks? What is it they don't want you to see? They are SCARED. It's just like that 1988 TV movie starring Tony Danza where he's @ the Berlin Wall. He shouts out at security guards, 'You have this wall and these barriers because you are SCARED!'.

East Germany, Myanmar, China. It's all the same.

They!

Are!

SCARED!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

whoever controls the media, controls the loudest propaganda

2 ( +2 / -0 )

US government declared war on Russian, in Putin intercircle, with sanction regime, the US has just delivered the mother of all butthurt on Russian ,and just delivered a shipment of weapons to Ukraine, still waiting for the paper Tiger government of Japan to deliver some water Google US Putin Sanction

2 ( +2 / -0 )

China thrives on censorship. It’d be nothing without it.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Once they are gone, who else will report on the mass genocide, "disappearances" of dissenters, criminal actions committed by the elite, and all other human rights abuses within China?

Even during the darkest days of the Cold War the former USSR could not hide its abuses from the West. Word finds its way out along with images and documents. Today the ready availability of high quality commercial satellite imagery makes it even harder for tyrants to hide their what they are up to.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

China is not communist.

It was under Mao and is becoming so once again. Xi Jinping is a Maoist true believer. Read some of his speeches. He is convinced China is on its way to socialist / communist purity and sees it as his duty to deliver this. Remember China was a semi-feudal nation of peasants when Mao came to power, where Marxism-Leninism was an urban movement that drew its strength from factory workers. Mao adapted Marxism-Leninism to China's conditions. Xi Jinping sees himself as another Mao, wearing the same Zhongshan suit Mao wore, as do his cabinet members and other officials at public appearances both inside and outside China. He favors State Owned Industries over private enterprise to the point of bluntly telling private corporations to take direction from state owned industries.

Quotes from a long speech (link below) given this past summer:

*"We must continue to adapt Marxism to the Chinese context. Marxism is the fundamental guiding ideology upon which our Party and country are founded; it is the very soul of our Party and the banner under which it strives. The Communist Party of China upholds the basic tenets of Marxism and the principle of seeking truth from facts. Based on China’s realities, we have developed keen insights into the trends of the day, seized the initiative in history, and made painstaking explorations. We have thus been able to keep adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times, and to guide the Chinese people in advancing our great social revolution. At the fundamental level, the capability of our Party and the strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics are attributable to the fact that Marxism works.*

On the journey ahead, we must continue to uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development, and fully implement the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. We must continue to adapt the basic tenets of Marxism to China’s specific realities and its fine traditional culture. We will use Marxism to observe, understand, and steer the trends of our times, and continue to develop the Marxism of contemporary China and in the 21st century.

*We must uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics**. We must follow our own path-this is the bedrock that underpins all the theories and practices of our Party. More than that, it is the historical conclusion our Party has drawn from its struggles over the past century. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a fundamental achievement of the Party and the people, forged through innumerable hardships and great sacrifices, and it is the right path for us to achieve national rejuvenation. As we have upheld and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics and driven coordinated progress in material, political, cultural-ethical, social, and ecological terms, we have pioneered a new and uniquely Chinese path to modernization, and created a new model for human advancement."*

https://newcoldwar.org/xi-jinpings-speech-on-the-centenary-of-the-communist-party-of-china/

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Fighto!

The message is loud and clear: the Communist party does not want foreign journalists inside the dictatorship - period.

Once they are gone, who else will report on the mass genocide, "disappearances" of dissenters, criminal actions committed by the elite, and all other human rights abuses within China?

We all have known about the CCP censorship for a long time. Much more worrisome is the CCP influence on Western media, universities, politicians, sports organizations, entertainment industry, etc. THAT is what we should worry about.

And also, there are plenty of topics that our Western corporate media journalists never touch, so again, worrying about the CCP alone is kind of ignoring the forest while looking at a tree...

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Even during the darkest days of the Cold War the former USSR could not hide its abuses from the West. Word finds its way out along with images and documents. Today the ready availability of high quality commercial satellite imagery makes it even harder for tyrants to hide their what they are up to.

I 100% agree. Which makes it all the more telling that despite all these technologies and imaging there is no proof of any of these supposed crimes. Unless you consider aerial imagery of schools evidence of...something.

That was probably one of Xi's best speeches to date, though I am not entirely sold on him being a Maoist or Dengist over a Marxist-Leninist. That may be me projecting though, since I am in that camp myself and would certainly prefer that to be the case. We've definitely seen the actions in recent years to support that they are in a transitory period towards true communism.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

 that they are in a transitory period towards true communism.

Ain't gonna happen. The CCP is warped, twisted, ugly thanks to the legacy of Mao. The crap he did and the crap Xi does now is light-years away from 'true communism'. Karl Marx is spinning in his grave.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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