Tag: Freedom of the Press

Expelled from China

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China is one of the biggest stories in the world — and one of the most complex. That’s why The New York Times has always tried to have correspondents on the ground who can get under the surface and report out the nuances. But the Chinese authorities have long been wary of foreign journalists. They restrict their access, surveil their movements and sometimes expel them outright. My colleague Vivian Wang, our brilliant China correspondent, recently had her visa revoked. During her time in the country, she talked to a cross-section…

I Was Kicked Out of China

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new video loaded: I Was Kicked Out of China <img src="https://www.chinastrategy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/i-was-kicked-out-of-china.jpg" data-testid="betamax-poster" sizes="(width Our Times correspondent, Vivian Wang, was expelled from China as part of Beijing’s crackdown on foreign journalists. She explains how a pressure campaign by the authorities made it challenging to do her job. By Vivian Wang, Nailah Morgan, James Surdam and Jiwoong Hong June 26, 2026 NYT

Taiwan Criticizes China’s Expulsion of New York Times Reporter

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A spokeswoman for Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, criticized Beijing for expelling a New York Times reporter from China in response to Mr. Lai’s appearance by video at a Times DealBook summit in New York in December. The reporter, Vivian Wang, who was based in Beijing, was expelled in February. She was not involved in the DealBook conference, an annual event that features prominent executives and politicians. Chinese officials had complained for months about Ms. Wang’s reporting, which often addressed topics Beijing considered sensitive. At the same time, China has sought…

After China Orders a Times Reporter to Leave the Country, the U.S. Reciprocates

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China’s government has ordered a New York Times reporter to leave the country, and the Trump administration has responded by revoking the visa of a U.S.-based Chinese state media journalist, in a diplomatic tit-for-tat with implications for press freedoms and U.S.-China relations. The expulsion order in February of the Times reporter, Vivian Wang, is the latest example of a crackdown by Beijing on foreign correspondents whose reporting challenges the official line of President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian government. It also inflames long-running tensions between China and the United States over the…

China Scraps Premier’s Annual News Conference in Surprise Move

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China’s premier will no longer hold a news conference after the country’s annual legislative meeting, Beijing announced on Monday, ending a three-decades-long practice that had been an exceedingly rare opportunity for journalists to interact with top Chinese leaders. The decision, announced a day before the opening of this year’s legislative conclave, was to many observers a sign of the country’s increasing information opacity, even as the government has declared its commitment to transparency and fostering a friendly business environment. It also reinforced how China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has consolidated…

Judge Fines Ex-Fox News Reporter, Catherine Herridge, for Not Revealing Sources

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A federal judge held a veteran investigative reporter in contempt of court on Thursday for not revealing her sources for articles she wrote about a scientist who was investigated by the F.B.I. The journalist, Catherine Herridge, formerly of CBS News and Fox News, was ordered to pay $800 a day until she divulged the information. The judge, Christopher Cooper of U.S. District Court in Washington, stayed the fine for 30 days to give Ms. Herridge time to appeal. The case, which has alarmed First Amendment advocates, relates to a series…

‘I Have No Future’: China’s Rebel Influencer Is Still Paying a Price

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In November 2022, Li Ying was a painter and art school graduate in Milan, living in a state of sadness, fear and despair. China’s strict pandemic policies had kept him from seeing his parents for three years, and he was unsure where his country was heading. In China, after enduring endless Covid tests, quarantines and lockdowns, people staged the most widespread protests the country had seen in decades, many holding roughly letter-size paper to demonstrate defiance against censorship and tyranny, in what has been called the White Paper movement. Then…

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen Criticized for Comments on Reporter’s Chinese Nationality

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Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska is facing criticism after he dismissed a news article about environmental concerns at his hog farms, saying that the reporter who wrote it was from “Communist China.” The reporter, Yanqi Xu, 27, revealed her findings in an article published Sep. 7 by The Flatwater Free Press that detailed nitrate levels “far above” the legal drinking water limit at more than a dozen farms owned by Mr. Pillen, a Republican. While the farms had brought prosperity to Platte Center, a village about 60 miles northwest of…

China Releases Australian Journalist Cheng Lei

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Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist who was held in Beijing for more than three years, has returned to Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday. Mr. Albanese said Ms. Cheng had been reunited with her two young children in Melbourne. “Her return brings an end to a very difficult few years for Cheng and her family,” Mr. Albanese said at a news conference on Wednesday. Ms. Cheng, who worked for China’s global television network, was detained in Beijing in August 2020 and formally arrested later on suspicion of sharing…

Book Review: ‘Sparks,’ by Ian Johnson

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SPARKS: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future, by Ian Johnson By now, it is almost clichéd to compare political misrule to the dystopia that Orwell conjured through the story of the low-ranking functionary Winston Smith in “1984,” but so many aspects of the novel have come true in today’s China — from mass surveillance to fury-inciting demagogy to President Xi Jinping’s declaration that the Communist Party’s rule is “the conclusion of history” — that it may appear to preclude, as it ultimately did for Smith, the possibility…