China pours more scorn on French journalist being forced out

A French journalist said she is prepared to leave China and does not expect authorities to renew her press credentials because of her reporting of Beijing’s efforts to equate ethnic violence in the western Muslim region with global terrorism.

Gauthier said that the foreign ministry will not give her new press credentials unless she publicly apologizes for “hurting Chinese people’s feelings”, states that she does not “support terrorism”, and distances herself from “foreign NGOs and media who presented my case as an infringement of press freedom in China”.

In the statement, Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said Gauthier was no longer “suitable” for her job in China and that her reporting “emboldened” terrorists.

Gauthier is the first foreign correspondent threatened with expulsion from China since 2012.

China has expelled a French journalist who criticised its treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority to leave the country.

The Beijing Youth Dailypiece notes that Gauthier, like all foreign journalists, is subject to MOFA’s “Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on News Coverage by Permanent Offices of Foreign Media Organizations and Foreign Journalists” (Foreign Media Regs) (official English translation here).

He pointed to Article 18, which requires telecom operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) to provide technical support and assistance, including decryption, to police and national security authorities in prevention and investigation of terrorist activities. Journalists for China’s own entirely state-controlled media work under much tighter restrictions.

In a brief statement, China’s National People’s Congress said it would hold a news briefing on Sunday to talk about the law, following the end of parliament’s latest law-making session. “If it was true that I was supporting terrorism, they should indict me, not expel me, it’s a crime”.

Lu added that because Gauthier did not make a public apology, she could not work in China. USA lawmakers have pointblank accused Chinese companies like ZTE and Huawei of being pawns, unwitting or otherwise, in China’s attempts to gain U.S. trade secrets.

“I am convinced that they are very clearly trying to intimidate foreign press in China because they don’t want anyone to say things which are different from the official version of the question”.

She maintained that violence in Xinjiang had “nothing in common” with the kind of attacks Paris had witnessed just days earlier-a view the Chinese government called sympathetic to terrorism.

The article, the Global Times wrote in a November editorial, “severely distorted the reality in Xinjiang” and represented a double standard on terrorism.

“The Chinese press itself has been totally muzzled”, she said. It said: “Insinuating that Gauthier supports terrorism is a particularly egregious personal and professional affront with no basis in fact”.