CHINA has tightened controls on Hong Kong reporters by barring them from an international securities symposium in Beijing. About 12 Hong Kong business journalists, invited to Beijing to attend the symposium last week, were prevented from covering the event after a warning from the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. It was the second time in a week that Beijing had cracked down on Hong Kong journalists coe symposium, the organisers were told by the office that some of the journalists invited had no permits and could not cover the event. ''This is a sensitive time, and we don't want anything to happen,'' Mr Tsang said. On Thursday, Beijing banned at least seven Hong Kong journalists seeking to cover a visit by a Taiwan delegation to the site of the Qiandao Lake tourist boat fire which killed 32 people in March. The journalists had signed a petition expressing their concern and anger over Ming Pao journalist Xi Yang's 12-year sentence for ''stealing state secrets'' and were boycotted ''propaganda-oriented'' media invitations from China until the end of this month. Hong Kong Journalists' Association chairman Daisy Li Yuet-wah said Beijing's move was apparently a reaction to the journalists' boycott. ''There is no sign that it is a long-term policy to tighten control. And we do not want this to happen again,'' she said. The Hong Kong journalists were angered by a statement from the organisers that ''foreign journalists have not been formally invited to report'' on the symposium. ''The event's PR consultant issued invitations to the local press in black and white. I simply don't understand why they denied having made any invitation,'' Ms Li said. Mr Tsang said journalists were invited to attend the symposium, but ''they have been told that no reporting activities should be done when the symposium is on''. ''We won't interfere during recesses,'' he said. vering events on the mainland. According to Richard Tsang, director of Edelman Financial who invited Hong Kong journalists to th
