China hopes India can meet it halfway in media row
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The journalist's departure will wipe India’s media presence from China at a moment of deteriorating ties.
PHOTO: PEXELS
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BEIJING – China on Monday called on India to meet it halfway in a dispute over journalists working in each other’s countries,
The dispute over media staff is the latest episode highlighting tensions between the Asian neighbours since a deterioration in ties in mid-2020 when their troops clashed on the disputed Himalayan frontier
“In recent years, Chinese journalists in India have been accorded unfair and discriminatory arrangements,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a Monday briefing.
“We hope that India will continue to issue visas for Chinese journalists and remove the unreasonable restrictions and create favourable conditions for media exchanges.”
China has declined to renew the visas of the last two Indian journalists based there, citing India taking similar action in June against the two remaining Chinese state media journalists in India.
One of the two Indians, a reporter for the Hindustan Times, left China on Sunday as his visa had expired, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
The last Indian reporter in China, from the state Press Trust of India news agency, will leave in June when his visa expires, the sources said.
India had four reporters based in China in 2023, but two were barred from returning in April after being told that their visas had been frozen.
That leaves India without a media presence in the world’s second-largest economy.
Mr Wang said India had not approved new visas for Chinese journalists since 2020, resulting in a drop from 14 to only one Chinese correspondent there.
“It is very unfortunate that nothing has been done on the Indian side,” he said.
“China is ready to act on the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit to keep in communication with the Indian side, and we hope that India will meet China halfway.”
India approved temporary visas for Chinese state media reporters visiting for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation foreign ministers’ meeting in May, one of the sources said.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said in June that it hoped China would allow Indian journalists to work in China, adding that India allowed all foreign journalists to operate there.
China and the United States have also been in a years-long dispute over journalist visas.
After the Trump administration designated a handful of Chinese media companies as “foreign missions” and put caps on the number of Chinese journalists in the country, Beijing responded by revoking press credentials for reporters at US media companies.
In 2020, two Australian journalists based in China fled the country as diplomatic tensions worsened between the two nations.
The two men were initially banned from leaving.
They spent five days under consular protection until Australian diplomats could negotiate their departure.
That year, Beijing accused Canberra of raiding the homes of Chinese state media staff and seizing their property.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
