BEIJING: China is complaining anew about latest reporting by the BBC, days after summoning the British ambassador to Beijing to register displeasure over a latest article she penned defending press freedom.
The Chinese Embassy in London posted an announcement on its web site Thursday saying it had written to the BBC expressing “robust dissatisfaction” and urging the broadcaster to “abandon bias, appropriate its mistake and report China in a goal, honest and balanced method.”
On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry summoned Ambassador Caroline Wilson over her article posted on the embassy’s Chinese microblog by which she mentioned essential reporting of China didn’t suggest hatred or disrespect for the nation itself. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Wednesday mentioned Wilson’s article mirrored her “deep-rooted ideological prejudices.”
The criticism displays deep Chinese anger each over the BBC’s reporting on delicate points such because the coronavirus outbreak and abuses in opposition to Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and the British governments determination to open a pathway for residency and eventual citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents.
China final month banned the BBC from the small variety of resorts, residential compounds and workplaces the place it had been proven, in obvious retaliation for its reporting on China and Britain’s revocation of the license of state-owned Chinese broadcaster CGTN.
Britain has condemned a Chinese crackdown on civil liberties within the former British colony of Hong Kong that has gathered tempo with the imposition final 12 months of a sweeping nationwide safety legislation and the Chinese parliament’s strikes to get rid of even the opportunity of authorities critics working for workplace within the semi-autonomous metropolis.
Scores of activists have been rounded up and accused of violating the legislation, whereas free speech and meeting have been severely curtailed, seemingly betraying China’s dedication to permit Hong Kong to retain its personal social, political and authorized programs for 50 years following the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
In its letter, the Chinese Embassy singled out a BBC Radio 4 report titled “The Disinformation Dragon” that aired on Tuesday. The report made “groundless accusations in opposition to China on points associated to, amongst others, info, COVID-19 and diplomacy.”
“China has all the time been a rustic of propriety and deeply values concord. We have by no means been the one which begins provocations and don’t have any intention to intervene within the inside affairs of different nations. It is the others who hold meddling in our home affairs and smearing China,” the letter mentioned.
In his criticism of Wilson’s article, Zhao mentioned China had said to her its “solemn place on the related subject.”
“Ambassador Wilson’s article, with a confused logic, avoids all of the info, together with the British media’s disinformation and false reporting on China,” Zhao mentioned.
He accused Wilson of ignoring the alleged suppression of Chinese media within the West and of praising “the so-called Western expertise in an boastful tone” and making “irresponsible remarks about China’s system and media.”
Wilson responded on Twitter, writing: “I stand by my article. No doubt the outgoing Chinese Ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ items he was free to put in mainstream British media.”
