BEIJING (AP) – China has banned BBC World News from the few outlets where it could be seen in the country in possible retaliation after British regulators revoked the license of Chinese state broadcaster CGTN.
Thursday’s move was largely symbolic, as BBC World was only featured on cable television systems in hotels and apartments for foreigners and other companies. But it draws foreign news suits deeper into Beijing’s growing conflict with Western governments after last year’s expulsion of reporters for American newspapers.
The National Radio and Television Administration said that China’s BBC World News coverage violated the requirements that news reporting be true and impartial. He accused the BBC of undermining China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
The Chinese government has criticized BBC reports for the COVID-19 pandemic in China and allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern Xinjiang region, home to Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
“The channel does not meet the requirements to broadcast in China as an overseas channel,” the Radio and Television Administration said in a statement dated midnight on Friday.
He gave no indication as to whether BBC reporters in China would be affected.
The communist government in Beijing last year expelled foreign reporters for 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 press freedom” that “would only affect 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 fabricating and spread misinformation,” the embassy said in a statement.
The Chinese Foreign Correspondents’ Club has expressed concern over allegations that the BBC has affected “national interests” and “national unity”.
It could be a “warning to foreign media operating in China that they could be penalized if their reports do not follow the Chinese party’s line about 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 on Friday. He cited the order of the main regulator, which applies to all Chinese territories.
The measure reflects the Communist Party’s increased control over the former British colony over the past two years. This has led to complaints that Beijing is violating the Western-style autonomy and civil liberties that Hong Kong was promised when it returned to China in 1997.
Ofcom, the UK’s communications watchdog, revoked the license for CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, on February 4, citing links to the Communist Party, among other reasons.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Ofcom had acted on “political grounds based on ideological bias.”
The loss of the British license was an obstacle for the CGTN, which is part of the party’s efforts to promote its views abroad. CGTN has a European operations center in London.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was worrying that media operations were restricted in China, while “Beijing leaders use free and open media abroad to promote misinformation.”
Price called on the Chinese government to allow its people free access to the media and the Internet.
“Freedom of the press is an important right and is the key to ensuring an informed citizenry, an informed citizenry that can share its ideas freely with each other and with their leaders,” Price said.