From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   China, India Kick Out Nearly All of Each Other’s Journalists as Rivalry   
   Escalates   
   By Keith Zhai, May 30, 2023, WSJ   
      
   SINGAPORE—India and China have ejected each other’s journalists in recent   
   weeks, virtually wiping out mutual media access and deepening a rift between   
   the world’s two most populous nations.   
      
   New Delhi denied visa renewals this month to the last two remaining Chinese   
   state media journalists in the country, from state-run Xinhua News Agency and   
   China Central Television, according to people familiar with the matter.   
      
   Indian media outlets had four remaining journalists based in China at the   
   beginning of the year. At least two of them haven’t been granted visas to   
   return to the country, a Chinese official said. A third was told this month   
   that his accreditation had    
   been revoked but he remains in the country, people familiar with the matter   
   said.   
      
   The reciprocal moves are likely to add to acrimony between the two neighbors,   
   whose relationship has deteriorated since a deadly brawl on the contested   
   Sino-Indian border in June 2020. Since then, a once-warming relationship   
   between the two members of    
   the so-called Brics grouping of emerging powers has grown testy, spilling over   
   into a wide-ranging bilateral dispute.   
      
   India has shifted toward more active participation in the Quadrilateral   
   Security Dialogue, the U.S.-led grouping known as the Quad that also includes   
   Australia and Japan, and which China regards as an attempt to encircle and   
   contain it.   
      
   Ties between New Delhi and Beijing have soured in other ways. India has banned   
   dozens of Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok, WeChat and other global hits   
   with roots in China, effectively locking them out of the fast-growing Indian   
   market.   
      
   In recent months, China has renamed certain features in the Indian state of   
   Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety and calls South   
   Tibet.   
      
   China boycotted a Group of 20 working group meeting on tourism after India, as   
   host, decided to hold the meeting this month in the territory of Kashmir. The   
   region has been at the center of a dispute between India and Pakistan since   
   partition in 1947,    
   with both countries claiming it in full but only controlling parts of it.   
   China’s territorial disputes with India include the abutting strategic area   
   of Ladakh.   
      
   The journalist ejections add another dimension to the fraying ties between   
   China and India, reducing exchanges and visibility between two nuclear-armed   
   neighbors whose combined population accounts for more than one-third of the   
   world’s total.   
      
   “The presence of more journalists from China in India would help to bridge   
   the gap between the two countries and foster a deeper understanding of each   
   other’s cultures and perspectives,” said Wang Zichen, a former Chinese   
   state media reporter who    
   now works as a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a   
   Beijing think tank. “This, in turn, could lead to a reduction in hostility   
   and a more peaceful resolution to the border dispute.”   
      
   Journalist accreditation has risen in prominence as a geopolitical issue in   
   recent years, as governments increasingly regard members of the press as   
   extensions of their home countries’ foreign policies. In early 2020, China   
   expelled more than a dozen    
   American reporters, including for The Wall Street Journal, while the U.S.   
   capped the number of accreditations for Chinese journalists. All of   
   Australia’s foreign correspondents left China later that year amid   
   escalating tensions between the two    
   countries.   
      
   A record number of journalists were imprisoned in 2022, the New York-based   
   Committee to Protect Journalists said last month. In March, Russia detained   
   Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on an allegation of espionage   
   that the Journal and the U.   
   S. government vehemently deny.   
      
   The moves by China and India to virtually freeze out the other side show how   
   quickly ties can deteriorate.   
      
   The last two remaining Chinese state media journalists have departed the   
   country following the expiration of their visas, according to people familiar   
   with the matter. There are now no remaining Chinese state media reporters in   
   India, some of them said,    
   likely for the first time since at least the 1980s.   
      
   China has likewise denied credentials for Indian journalists. Last month,   
   reporters for the Hindu, one of India’s largest newspapers, and Prasar   
   Bharati, New Delhi’s state-owned public broadcaster, who were traveling   
   outside China, were barred from    
   returning, while a reporter for the Hindustan Times was told this month that   
   his press credentials were being invalidated, according to people familiar   
   with the matter.   
      
   Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning last month described the barring   
   of the Hindu and Prasar Bharati reporters as “appropriate countermeasures to   
   safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese media o   
   ganizations” after India    
   began tightening its rules on Chinese journalists beginning in 2017, including   
   reducing some visa periods to just one month. The spokeswoman mentioned at the   
   time that two other Indian outlets still had journalists in China. A spokesman   
   for India’s    
   Embassy in Beijing didn’t respond to requests for comment.   
      
   A spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to discuss the   
   details of visas for individual journalists. He pointed to April comments in   
   which he had said Chinese journalists continue to work in India and the   
   government hoped China    
   would allow Indian journalists to work there.   
      
   Over the years, India has increasingly limited the duration of stay for   
   Chinese journalists. In 2016, India refused to extend visas for three Xinhua   
   journalists, including its then-bureau chief in New Delhi, according to the   
   Committee to Protect    
   Journalists.   
      
   In December, a Chinese state television reporter was unexpectedly ordered to   
   leave India within 10 days, despite holding a valid visa, and given no   
   explanation, China’s Foreign Ministry said in its statement this month. The   
   spokesman for the Indian    
   government didn’t respond to a question about this claim.   
      
      
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