China’s recent announcement that BBC World News is banned from broadcasting in the country is another worrying example of Beijing closing in and makes clear the extent of the Communist Party’s censorship regime, said author Gordon Chang.
The authoritarian government’s National Radio and Television Administration announced its restriction on the British broadcaster on February 11, claiming that the BBC damaged Chinese “unity” with its reporting on the country’s atrocities against ethnic minorities.
“China under Xi Jinping is excluding the rest of the world. It is basically a closure of the Chinese mind because Xi does not like foreign influences,” Chang told Fox News. “As China isolates itself from the rest of the world, it will not have the benefit of communicating with other people. Everyone benefits from talking to others, and societies that isolate themselves usually end up strangling themselves.”
China was formally accused by the United States last month of perpetrating a genocide against Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region through a system of torture, internment, rape and ethnic cleansing.
CHINA PROHIBITS BBC AFTER RESEARCH REPORT ON ATROCITIES AGAINST UIGHURS
The BBC’s February 2 report on these atrocities, as well as the revocation of the license of the China Global Television Network, aligned by the Communist Party, earlier this month, triggered China’s decision to ban the BBC entirely. It was already heavily censored there, although it could be seen in hotels and some residences.
China is already facing global scrutiny about the origins of the deadly coronavirus pandemic and suppressing critical reports of the disease at the start of the outbreak. Since then, he has spread conspiracy theories through state media about the origins of COVID-19.
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“People around the world will start to think about how much censorship there is in China,” said Chang. “Xi Jinping got away with it for a long time … This may well be a tipping point where people will really begin to understand what strict censorship is like.”
The BBC said it was “disappointed that the Chinese authorities have decided to take this course of action. The BBC is the world’s most trusted international news broadcaster and reports stories from around the world fairly, impartially and without fear or favor”.