India and China are “virtually wiping out media access” to each other by ejecting each other’s journalists, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The report alleged India had “denied visa renewals this month to the last two remaining Chinese state media journalists in the country”.
For the first time since “at least the 1980s”, the report said, “there are now no remaining Chinese state media reporters in India.”
The report was published hours after the Chinese embassy in India tweeted about “over 60,000” visas being issued to Indians in the first five months of 2023.
In April, China had informed two Indian journalists in Beijing that their journalistic visas had been “frozen”. The two journalists – the Hindu’s Beijing correspondent Ananth Krishnan and Prasar Bharati journalist Anshuman Mishra – had been in India at the time and were allegedly told “not to return” to China. Two other Indian journalists in China were told they can “stay for now”.
The WSJ report quoted a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson as saying the freezing of these journalists’ visas was “appropriate countermeasures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese media organisations”.
WSJ listed the ways in which India-China ties have “soured” in recent times – India banning Chinese apps like TikTok, China renaming areas in Arunachal Pradesh, China boycotting a G20 meet – and said the latest moves “show how quickly ties can deteriorate”.
India’s tension with China was exacerbated by clashes along the border. Watch this episode of Newsance on what happened and why – according to some news channels – it’s all Nehru’s fault.
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