BEIJING (AP) – China has banned BBC World News from the few channels where it could be seen in the country, in possible retaliation after British regulators revoked the license of Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.
The change on Thursday was largely symbolic, because BBC World was shown only on cable TV systems in hotels and apartments for foreigners and some other companies. But that attracts foreign news to Beijing’s growing conflict with Western governments, after the expulsion of American newspaper reporters last year.
The National Radio and Television Administration said the BBC World News coverage in China violated the requirements for the news to be true and impartial. He accused the BBC of undermining China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
The Chinese government criticized the BBC’s reports on the COVID-19 pandemic in China and allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in northwestern Xinjiang, home to Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
“The channel does not meet the requirements to broadcast in China as a foreign channel,” said the Radio and Television Administration in a statement dated midnight on Friday.
He gave no indication as to whether BBC reporters in China would be affected.
Beijing’s communist government last year expelled foreign reporters 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, called the measure “an unacceptable restriction on media freedom” that “would only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world”.
The Chinese embassy, responding to Raab, defended the decision as “legitimate and reasonable” and accused the BBC of “malicious attacks” against the Communist Party of China.
“We urge the BBC to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop manufacturing and spread disinformation,” the embassy said in a statement.
The China Foreign Correspondents Club 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 it could face sanctions if its reporting does 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 principal regulator, which applies to the entire Chinese territory.
The change reflects the Communist Party’s increased control over the former British colony in the past two years. This has prompted complaints that Beijing is violating the Western-style autonomy and civil liberties that Hong Kong promised when it returned to China in 1997.
Britain’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, revoked its license from CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, on February 4. He cited links to the Communist Party, among other reasons.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China said that Ofcom acted “for political reasons based on ideological prejudices”.
The loss of his 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 hub in London.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price found it worrying that media operations were restricted within China, while “Beijing’s leaders use open and free media environments abroad to promote disinformation”.
Price asked 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 the key to guaranteeing informed citizenship, informed citizenship that can share its ideas freely with each other and with its leaders,” said Price.