BEIJING (AP) – China has banned the BBC World News television channel from the few shops where it could be seen in the country as possible retaliation after British regulators revoked the license of Chinese broadcaster CGTN.
The move Thursday was largely symbolic, as BBC World was only shown on cable TV systems in hotels and apartments for foreigners and other businesses. But it pulls foreign news outlets deeper into the escalating conflict in Beijing with Western governments following the expulsion of reporters for U.S. newspapers last year.
The National Radio and Television Administration has said that BBC World News’ coverage of China violates the requirements that news reports must be true and impartial. It accuses the BBC of undermining China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
The Chinese government has criticized BBC reports on the COVID-19 pandemic in China and on allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, 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 at midnight Friday.
It gave no indication as to whether BBC reporters would be affected in China.
The Communist government in Beijing last year suspended 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 called the move in a written statement an “unacceptable curtailment of media freedom” that would “only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world”.
The Chinese embassy, which is responding to Raab, defends the ruling as ‘legal and reasonable’ and accuses the BBC of ‘malicious attacks’ against China’s ruling Communist Party.
“We call on the BBC to abandon the Cold War mentality, stop fabricating and disseminating disinformation,” the embassy said in a statement.
China’s foreign correspondent club has expressed concern over allegations that the BBC has harmed ‘national interests’ and ‘national unity’.
This could be a ‘warning to foreign media working in China that they could face sanctions if their reporting does not follow the Chinese party line over Xinjiang and other ethnic minority regions’, the group said in a statement.
In Hong Kong, government broadcaster RTHK said it would no longer carry BBC World broadcasts on Friday. It quoted the order of the chief regulator, which applied to all Chinese territories.
The move reflects the Communist Party’s growing control of the former British colony over the past two years. This has led to complaints that Beijing is violating Western-style autonomy and civil liberties, which Hong Kong was promised when it returned to China in 1997.
The British watchdog for communications, Ofcom, revoked the license for CGTN, China’s English-speaking satellite news channel, on 4 February. Among other things, he mentions links to the Communist Party.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Ofcom had “based on ideological prejudice” on political grounds.
The loss of its British license was a setback for CGTN, which is part of the party’s efforts to advance its views abroad. CGTN has a European operations center in London.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price called it a concern that media activities within China were restricted, while “Beijing’s leaders use free and open media environments overseas to promote misinformation.”
Price called on the Chinese government to allow its people free access to the media and the internet.
“Media freedom is an important right and that is the key to ensuring an informed citizen, an informed citizen who can freely share their ideas with each other and with their leaders,” Price said.