Chinese Censorship Is Spreading All Over The World

REUTERS/Will Burgess

Amnesty International volunteers tie cloth gags across their mouths during a protest in central Sydney in July, 2008. They demonstrated against what they claim is the Chinese government's censorship and surveillance of internet users in China.

A new study by the Center for International Media Assistance has found that, over the last five years, China's media restrictionshave begun to seriously affect the reportage and operations of international organizations.

As China's international political and economic power has grown, so has international coverage. The number of foreign correspondents in the country has nearly doubled since 2002. As a result, the Chinese government has moved to use its increased clout to control international opinion and reportage.

The Communist Party thinks its now powerful enough to intimidate [non-Chinese], from business people to diplomats to academics and journalists, and its willing to throw its weight around, veteran China reporter Paul Mooney said. It has learned that this often works and is willing to do anything to protect its image and stop negative news from being reported.

The Communist Party of China engages in four main strategies for influencing international media, according to the study:

The study found that, during the last six years, foriegn journalists have been assaulted while reporting on land protests in Zhejiang and an activists trial in Sichaun, among other incidents.

In addition, journalists have expereinced delays in visa processing or had their applications rejected directly based on the content of their reporting. In 2013, ten percent of respondents reported difficulty obtaining press accreditation because of their reporting.In 2012, al-Jazeera Englishs Melissa Chan and the New York Times Chris Buckley were denied visa renewal and forced to leave the country, in what the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China called the most extreme example of using journalist visas to censor and intimidate foreign correspondents in China.

The other major facet of the Chinese censorship enterprise is the use of economic benefits or repercussions for businesses and publications, based on their coverage.

A few examples from the study:

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Chinese Censorship Is Spreading All Over The World