The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) devotes enormous resources to internal stability, including rigorous monitoring and censoring of its media. Yet China is increasingly a global power and as a new report from the Center for International Media Assistance makes clear, their repressive media practices are increasingly aimed at international outlets covering China.
According to the report, Chinese officials both directly block independent reporting from overseas media or, more often, use "methods of control that subtly induce self-censorship or inspire media owners, advertisers and other international actors to take action on the CCP's behalf."
In fact, we saw possible evidence of this just this week when the New York Times reported that Bloomberg News had spiked several stories covering Chinese corruption out of deference to Chinese authorities (Bloomberg denies the story).
The Center for International Media Assistance's report notes that the CCP will forcibly prevent foreign journalists from accessing "sensitive locations" or interview subjects, intimidate their Chinese assistants and block or wage cyber-attacks on websites they rely on. Physical assaults against journalists and especially their sources by thugs or security forces have also become more violent.
You can read the entire report here.
(AP Photo)
