Tag: Press freedom

Washington —  Depending on who is asked, the now-defunct China Project news outlet is either an agent of Beijing, an anti-Chinese media brand, or the victim of a bad business model. The allegations leveled at the English-language news website over its seven years of operation reflect what analysts say is a shift in the media environment in favor of China hawks, which also makes covering the country all the more challenging. The mixture of a massive state-led economy, poor human rights record, authoritarian government and the threat of war over…

An award-winning reporter from the South China Morning Post has gone missing following a work trip to China at the end of October, the Japanese news outlet Kyodo News reported on Thursday, citing unidentified people close to the issue. Minnie Chan, who covers defense and diplomacy in China, has become unreachable after traveling to Beijing to report on the Xiangshan Forum. The three-day international security forum concluded on October 31. Chan’s last story, about China’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, was published on November 1. The South China Morning Post,…

washington —  An Australian Chinese journalist detained for over three years in China said Tuesday she was jailed for breaking an embargo by just a few minutes. Cheng Lei, a former anchor at the Chinese state-run TV channel CGTN, was detained in Beijing in August 2020. A closed-door trial later took place in 2022. But details of what led to that arrest had not previously been disclosed. China’s Ministry of State Security said that a foreign organization approached Cheng in May 2020, and she provided them with state secrets. A…

Washington —  After years of enduring conferences about China whose panels primarily featured men — dubbed “manels” — and reading articles on China that mainly cited men, Joanna Chiu was fed up. Years before foreign correspondents were being forced to leave China in droves, and even before headlines documented the widespread online harassment that female reporters face over their China coverage, the more obvious issue, according to Chiu, was the sidelining of female experts on China. The excuse that there just weren’t many female China experts eventually grew so banal…

TAIPEI —  Two prominent Chinese activists were tried for subversion Friday in Guangzhou in a closed-door proceeding, while supporters and activists criticized Chinese authorities for putting on a “sham trial” and calling for their immediate release. Independent Chinese journalist Huang Xueqin, who became prominent after covering China’s #MeToo Movement, and labor rights activist Wang Jianbing were arrested by Chinese police in September 2021 in Guangzhou. They were charged with “inciting subversion of state power” the following month. Huang and Wang have been in detention for two years without trial and…