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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

Former Chinese government spokesman calls for ‘friendly’ approach to foreign media

  • Against a backdrop of increasing pressure on international news outlets, an adviser to the Hainan free port advocates more interaction
  • Zhao Qizheng’s comments were published by state media soon after foreign correspondents were harassed while covering Henan’s floods

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Wall Street Journal reporters (from left) Julie Wernau, Stu Woo and Stephanie Yang departing Beijing in March last year. They were among a number of reporters from three major US newspapers forced to leave China. Photo: AFP
Kinling Lo
While foreign journalists working in China have expressed concerns about the country’s increasingly difficult reporting environment, a former Chinese government spokesman has called for a more friendly approach to international news media.

“Foreign media like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, we have to have more interactions with them. We cannot cut them off or be unwelcoming to them because they have criticised us before.

“ We need to have exchanges when we need to,” said Zhao Qizheng, former director of the Chinese State Council’s news office, according to an article published on Monday by People’s Daily.

Zhao was advising Hainan’s propaganda department on how to promote the government’s plan to turn the southern island province into a globally influential free-trade port, according to the article, which did not specify when he made the comments.
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“With more communication, we can be friends, and after becoming friends we can point out to them which reporting they did was not accurate, and provide more explanation on the actual situation. The reporting conducted by major international news outlets is very important. [We] have to treat it seriously,” he said.

In June Chinese President Xi Jinping told senior Communist Party officials that the country needed to “expand its circle of friends” by revamping its image into a “credible, lovable and respectable China”.
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However, in a statement released last week, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) said it was “disappointed and dismayed at the growing hostility against foreign media in China” after multiple journalists were harassed while reporting on the floods in Henan province.

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