Activists warn US lawmakers to counter media restrictions in countries influenced by China
- Rights campaigners including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa testified before a US Senate subcommittee about China’s influence
- Recommendations included sanctions on those seen as undercutting press freedom and refuge for persecuted journalists
The US must step up efforts to stem deteriorating press freedoms across East Asia, including supporting media outlets on mainland China’s periphery, lawmakers were told on Wednesday.
A panel of rights campaigners issued the recommendations – including sanctions on those seen as undercutting press freedom and refuge for persecuted journalists – to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, amid warnings from advocacy groups that some governments want to replicate Beijing’s grip over media content.
Beijing’s ability to construct “the world’s most sophisticated and multilayered apparatus of information control has showed that such a project is possible and it’s played a role in normalising digital repression,” said Sarah Cook, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, a Washington-based democracy watchdog.
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Journalist Maria Ressa in Oslo for Nobel Peace Prize
The number of jailed journalists globally reached a record high last year, with China and Myanmar placing first and second in a ranking of the “world’s worst jailers of journalists” compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Vietnam placed fourth, after Egypt.
Cook and others pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as having provided a pretext for hardline governments in the region to ramp up surveillance and crack down on freedoms of speech and assembly.
Since taking office in 2013, Xi has doubled down on Beijing’s efforts to “tell China’s story well” to the outside world, investing heavily in the foreign reach of state media outlets, running paid supplements in foreign newspapers, and leaning on Western social media platforms as a megaphone for the government’s diplomats.