Noises coming from the top level of China’s propaganda apparatus suggest rules for foreign reporters, loosened this year in preparation for the Olympics, might stay in their slackened state past the big dance. From Reuters via the Guardian:
“No document says that when this new regulation expires on Oct. 17 next year we are going to return to the previous regulations,” Cai Wu, Minister of the State Council Information Office, told a news conference.
“If practices show that it will help the international community know better about China and it is in the interests of China’s efforts of reform and opening up, it is not at all necessary for us to change a good policy.” [Full Text]
As the article notes, the loosening of restrictions on reporters hasn’t exactly been implemented everywhere in China. The most notable exception was in the troubled Hebei village of Shengyou, where several foreign reporters investigating a mass incident this past fall where detained and interrogated (see CDT’s posts on the detentions here and here)
