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By putting a French journalist on a plane for telling the truth, China is shutting itself off. The outside world must not be intimidated, but stand up and protest
The French journalist Ursula Gauthier in Beijing on Thursday before flying back to France. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images
It is not a new charge that authoritarianism has grown in China since president Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Mr Xi’s strongman style has sometimes been compared to that of Mao Zedong. Under him, China has not only reasserted itself on the international stage, it has cracked down on all forms of domestic dissent. Now, Mr Xi’s government is turning the screws on the international media.
The expulsion of the French journalist, Ursula Gauthier, the longtime Beijing correspondent for the weekly L’Obs (formerly Le Nouvel Observateur) who flew out of China on Friday after her press visa was not renewed, is an intimidatory tactic aimed at discouraging all independent, critical coverage by foreign media organisations. It comes as China’s internal tensions are on the rise, many linked to social, environmental and ethnic issues. And it sends a message that foreign journalists should think twice before contradicting the official Chinese line.
Ms Gauthier’s offence was to have published a piece describing the ambiguities and ruthlessness of China’s “antiterrorist” policies in the western Xinjiang region, which is populated by the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighur minority. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years there, amid extensive human rights abuses, which China denies, saying it is facing a campaign from jihadi radicals and separatists. This very topic is, along with Tibet and the Tiananmen massacre, one more subject that Beijing wants to disappear altogether from the international media
The French journalist wrote in November that China has used the Paris attacks to justify more crackdowns on the Uighurs. She received death threats, was attacked by the official Chinese media, accused by the foreign ministry of “encouraging terrorism” and asked to make a public apology – which she refused to do.
Foreign journalists are by no means the primary victims of China’s crude methods. Chinese dissidents have been locked up in prisons where torture is frequently used. Directives have been issued to university students, researchers and native journalists, insisting on “correct” ideology and warning against the perils of the promotion of “universal values”. The internet has been targeted, and all domestic Chinese media are subjected to controls and censorship.
Now the signal from the Gauthier case is that foreign correspondents will be put under increased pressure and will risk losing their credentials if they do not write in ways the regime deems acceptable. All this makes it more difficult to report, more difficult for the outside world to make sense of China’s evolution, and for governments and investors to know how to pursue relations with it.
Any attempt to impose self-censorship on the foreign press in China should be strongly resisted. Western governments ought to protest publicly and explicitly against such pressures, whatever their commercial or economic interests. Worryingly, France has not set a good example in this case. When Ms Gauthier’s visa renewal was refused, the French foreign ministry expressed its “regrets”, and stressed “the importance of journalists being able to work everywhere in the world”. The statement failed even to name China, or to criticise it. That is simply not an adequate response to the expulsion and may not deter Beijing from further crackdowns on foreign media in future.
The Guardian view on the foreign press in China: expelling the messenger | Editorial | Opinion | The Guardian
The French journalist Ursula Gauthier in Beijing on Thursday before flying back to France. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images
It is not a new charge that authoritarianism has grown in China since president Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Mr Xi’s strongman style has sometimes been compared to that of Mao Zedong. Under him, China has not only reasserted itself on the international stage, it has cracked down on all forms of domestic dissent. Now, Mr Xi’s government is turning the screws on the international media.
The expulsion of the French journalist, Ursula Gauthier, the longtime Beijing correspondent for the weekly L’Obs (formerly Le Nouvel Observateur) who flew out of China on Friday after her press visa was not renewed, is an intimidatory tactic aimed at discouraging all independent, critical coverage by foreign media organisations. It comes as China’s internal tensions are on the rise, many linked to social, environmental and ethnic issues. And it sends a message that foreign journalists should think twice before contradicting the official Chinese line.
Ms Gauthier’s offence was to have published a piece describing the ambiguities and ruthlessness of China’s “antiterrorist” policies in the western Xinjiang region, which is populated by the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighur minority. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years there, amid extensive human rights abuses, which China denies, saying it is facing a campaign from jihadi radicals and separatists. This very topic is, along with Tibet and the Tiananmen massacre, one more subject that Beijing wants to disappear altogether from the international media
The French journalist wrote in November that China has used the Paris attacks to justify more crackdowns on the Uighurs. She received death threats, was attacked by the official Chinese media, accused by the foreign ministry of “encouraging terrorism” and asked to make a public apology – which she refused to do.
Foreign journalists are by no means the primary victims of China’s crude methods. Chinese dissidents have been locked up in prisons where torture is frequently used. Directives have been issued to university students, researchers and native journalists, insisting on “correct” ideology and warning against the perils of the promotion of “universal values”. The internet has been targeted, and all domestic Chinese media are subjected to controls and censorship.
Now the signal from the Gauthier case is that foreign correspondents will be put under increased pressure and will risk losing their credentials if they do not write in ways the regime deems acceptable. All this makes it more difficult to report, more difficult for the outside world to make sense of China’s evolution, and for governments and investors to know how to pursue relations with it.
Any attempt to impose self-censorship on the foreign press in China should be strongly resisted. Western governments ought to protest publicly and explicitly against such pressures, whatever their commercial or economic interests. Worryingly, France has not set a good example in this case. When Ms Gauthier’s visa renewal was refused, the French foreign ministry expressed its “regrets”, and stressed “the importance of journalists being able to work everywhere in the world”. The statement failed even to name China, or to criticise it. That is simply not an adequate response to the expulsion and may not deter Beijing from further crackdowns on foreign media in future.
The Guardian view on the foreign press in China: expelling the messenger | Editorial | Opinion | The Guardian
