China Still Welcomes Foreign Journalists: Envoy

China continued to welcome foreign journalists and discriminated against none, a Chinese envoy said on Wednesday, contradicting an Australian reporter's opinion that they were “barely tolerated.”

Wang Xining, deputy head of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, and Michael Smith, one the last journalists working for Australian media to flee China, were taking part in a panel discussion about China at the National Press Club of Australia.

Smith, a reporter for The Australian Financial Review who fled Shanghai in September after police demanded an interview and temporarily blocked his departure, said China once welcomed foreign journalists to “spread the news about China’s economic miracle.”

“In China, there’s no room for any opinion that does not match that of the Chinese Communist Party,” Smith said.

“It feels like these days we’re, sort of, barely tolerated.”

Wang said he was “quite sympathetic” toward Smith and Bill Birtles, an Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter who fled Beijing at the same time as Smith and under similar circumstances.

“It was not... my embassy or... any of our Chinese authorities who advised them to leave,” Wang said.

“Michael and I discussed that issue, we’ll continue to discuss and we’ll find out a solution for this. But in general, I would disagree with Michael saying that my government no longer welcomes foreign journalists because our policy is we welcome journalists from every corner of the world and also from the Western countries,” Wang added.

Many foreign journalists in China have been placed on short-term visas of as little as three months, making travel within the country difficult.

China has also blocked already-limited access to the BBC, partly in retribution for Britain’s revocation of the UK broadcasting license of the foreign arm of the state news channel CCTV.

Smith said BBC’s former Beijing correspondent John Sudworth was the latest high-profile journalist to leave China after reporting about detention camps in northwest Xinjiang and allegations that minority groups were coerced into working in textile factories.

BBC reported last month that Sudworth and his family had moved to Taiwan following pressure and threats from Chinese authorities.

Wang said BBC journalists “failed to present a truthful image” of Xinjiang.

“We never discriminate against any journalists, but we hope foreign journalists in China will present the true image of China,” Wang said. (AP)