NEWS OUTFITS GO OUT OF SERVICE IN CCP’S CHINA

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) move to restrict private investment in media has pushed several non-partisan, liberal news organisations to go out of service. China’s National Development and Reform Council has recently released a document called “Market Access Negative List 2021”, which seeks to impose a ban on the funding from private players for newsgathering, broadcasting and distribution, including on social media, The HK Post reported. The move has shown financial news website “Caixin” a door and other liberal outlets such as South China Morning Post (SCMP) are also going to be affected by restrictions.

Critics have said that the government’s decisions are intended to shape the minds of Chinese people, especially the youth. “The government is making sure that it controls its message, it won’t hand over the pen to anyone else. It wants a dominating voice to rule over everything,” a retired lecturer at Shanxi University named Lau was quoted as saying by The HK Post.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit organisation that promotes press freedom, has also urged Beijing to withdraw its new legislation and allow news outlets to operate freely in the country.

Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator also informed that the ban “threatens to deliver a death blow to China’s already extremely hobbled independent news industry.”

With this ban, the regime in China has worked to close off the last remaining avenues for accessing uncensored information by increasing pressure on private technology companies to police the content on their platforms more assiduously, The HK Post reported citing a research organisation Freedom House in its 2019 report. Besides the media, Beijing has also banned private investments in areas including political, economic, military, or diplomatic organisations, Radio Free Asia reported.

Meanwhile, Beijing has also significantly increased its efforts to influence media coverage to improve the global narrative about itself. Beijing has been using media as an important tool for asserting power and enhancing its narrative in international discourse, China is bankrolling scholars, journalists, and experts abroad, censoring domestic media while keeping a tab on Chinese Diaspora abroad, The HK Post reported.