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Media Advocates Urge West to Resist China's Censorship After EU Letter
Controversy

Joyce Huang

   Press freedom advocates say China's censorship of a [1]letter
   co-authored by 27 European Union ambassadors that contained a reference
   to the origins of the coronavirus is another example of how the lack of
   press freedom in the country has caused problems for the world.
   A sentence in the EU letter, which referred to China as the point of
   origin of the outbreak, was deleted when it was published in the
   Wednesday edition of the English language newspaper China Daily to mark
   the 45th anniversary of the grouping's diplomatic ties with China.
   The full version, which appeared on the websites of EU embassies to
   China, said "the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, and its
   subsequent spread to the rest of the world over the past three months,
   has meant that our pre-existing plans have been side-tracked."
   But the edited version published in state media omitted the words, "in
   China, and its subsequent spread to the rest of the world over the past
   three months."
   China's censorship
   The European Union Thursday expressed regret but seemed to accept the
   edit.
   "China has state-controlled media. There is censorship, that's a fact,"
   EU foreign affairs spokesperson Virginie Battu-Henriksson said in
   Brussels. But she said agreeing to the letter's censored publication
   meant the bloc could engage the Chinese on other key EU issues,
   including climate change, human rights and the pandemic response.
   Cédric Alviani, head of Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) East Asia
   bureau, said the incident showed that China repeatedly takes advantage
   of the media systems in western democracies to control narratives in
   its favor, while using its state media to mislead the world.
   "We call on the democracies to resist and never ever to compare the
   Chinese propaganda media with independent media that respect journalism
   ethics," Alviani told VOA.
   Alviani was referring to comparisons made by the U.S. State
   Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs.
   No comparisons
   The bureau Thursday tweeted that "last night, @washingtonpost [The
   Washington Post] carried Amb Cui's [Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui
   Tiankai] Op-Ed because that's what freedom of the press looks like.
   Also last night, [U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser] Matt
   Pottinger's speech on Weibo [China's equivalent to Twitter] disappeared
   within 5 minutes because that's what censorship looks like."
   In his Washington Post op-ed, Cui called for an end to the "blame game"
   over the pandemic, saying allegations blaming China for the outbreak's
   spread risked "decoupling" the world's two largest economies.
   He said, "it's time to focus on the disease and rebuild trust between
   our two countries... and restart the global economy."
   In his Monday speech, Pottinger praised whistleblower doctor Li
   Wenliang and several citizen journalists, calling them the true torch
   carriers of the spirit of the May 4 Movement, which ushered in a modern
   China a century ago.
   Alviani said Chinese media, which works as the party state's mouthpiece
   and never hesitates to exercise censorship, are no comparison to free
   and independent press in the West.
   He also cautioned readers against Cui's opinions in The Washington
   Post, which he believed are in no way fair, reliable and fact-based.
   Instead, he described the opinion as propaganda from a regime that
   constantly violates the press freedom.

References

   1. https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/china/78510/marking-45-years-eu-china-diplomatic-relations-time-global-crisis_en

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