BEIJING: The Foreign Ministry’s representative in Hong Kong stressed it resolutely opposes any attempt by external forces to abuse press freedom as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
The statement came after the Foreign Correspondents’ Club — a Hong Kong-based association of foreign journalists — commented on the central government’s latest countermeasures against restrictions that the United States has placed on Chinese media agencies operating in the US.
China said on Wednesday journalists of three US newspapers will not be allowed to continue working in the country, including the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, in view of US oppression of Chinese media agencies.
The journalists with The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of this year, have been told to report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four days starting from Wednesday, and to return their press cards within 10 days.
The ministry also required China-based branches of the Voice of America, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Time Magazine to provide written information about their employees, finances, operations and real estate in China.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club responded, alleging that China is interfering in the HKSAR’s affairs and calling the move a “serious erosion of ‘one country, two systems’ ‘’. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region described the FCC’s allegations as “patently absurd”.
It said China’s measures are “completely legitimate and reasonable” as they fall within the central government’s purview of foreign affairs in accordance with “one country, two systems” and the Basic Law of the HKSAR.
– The Daily Mail-China Daily News exchange item
