BEIJING (AP) – China has banned the BBC World News television channel in the few outlets where it could be seen in the country in possible retaliation after British regulators revoked the license of Chinese broadcaster CGTN.
The move was largely symbolic on Thursday, as BBC World was only shown on cable TV systems in hotels and apartment complexes for foreigners and a few other businesses. But it pulls foreign news deeper into Beijing’s growing conflict with Western governments after the expulsion of reporters from US newspapers last year.
The National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News’ coverage of China violated the requirement that news reports be true and impartial. It accused the BBC of undermining China’s national interests and ethnic solidarity.
The Chinese government has criticized BBC reports of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
“The station does not meet the requirements to broadcast in China as an overseas station,” the radio and television administration said in a statement at midnight Friday.
It gave no indication whether BBC reporters in China would be affected.
The communist government in Beijing last year expelled foreign reporters for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times during disputes with the Trump administration.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the move in a written statement “an unacceptable curtailment of media freedom” that would “only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world”.
In response to Raab, the Chinese Embassy defended the decision as “legitimate and reasonable” and accused the BBC of “vicious attacks” against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“We urge the BBC to let go of the Cold War mentality, to stop inventing and spreading disinformation,” the embassy said in a statement.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China expressed concern over the accusation that the BBC was harming “national interests” and “national unity”.
That could be a “warning to foreign media operating in China that they may face sanctions if their coverage does not follow China’s party line on Xinjiang and other minority ethnic regions,” the group said in a statement.
In Hong Kong, broadcaster RTHK said it would stop broadcasting BBC World broadcasts on Friday. It quoted the chief regulator’s order, which applied to the entire Chinese territory.
The move reflects the Communist Party’s increased control over the former British colony over the past two years. That has led to complaints that Beijing is violating the Western-style autonomy and civil liberties that Hong Kong was promised when it returned to China in 1997.
The UK communications watchdog, Ofcom, revoked the license for CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, on February 4. It cited links to the Communist Party, among other things.
A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said Ofcom was acting on “political grounds based on ideological bias”.
The loss of its UK license was a setback for CGTN, which is part of the party’s efforts to promote its positions abroad. CGTN has a European operational hub in London.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was disturbing that media activity in China was limited, while “Beijing’s leaders are using free and open media environments abroad to promote misinformation.”
Price called on the Chinese government to give the population free access to the media and the Internet.
“Media freedom is an important right and it is key to ensuring an informed bourgeoisie, an informed bourgeoisie that can freely share their ideas with each other and with their leaders,” said Price.