When, on the morning of April 4, 2023, I received a call from China’s Foreign Ministry informing me that my journalist visa had been frozen, my first thoughts had nothing to do with the broader significance of the world’s two most populous countries expelling each other’s reporters. Matters more pedestrian came to mind. What would happen to my cat? And my belongings in my Beijing apartment? Would my daughter be able to finish her term in school and say goodbye to her classmates? Questions that, two months on, I still don’t have clear answers to.
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For reporters caught in the crossfire of a media war, the geopolitics can hit close to home. Since 2020, more than a dozen journalists have effectively been expelled by not having their visas renewed — three Indian reporters in China and the rest, Chinese reporters in India. For the reporters involved, the perfunctory headlines about journalists being kicked out means moving house suddenly (in the case of two Indian reporters, even that was not possible because Beijing decided to immediately freeze their visas and bar their return to China even to pack up), pulling children out of school in the middle of term, or even prolonged family separations because of visa uncertainties. Thanks to the expulsions, now only one reporter from each country remains on the other side of the border. That number may soon be down to zero. The last Chinese reporter in India is awaiting his visa to be renewed. Should it be declined, China has said that the last Indian reporter in Beijing will have to leave the country.
