The central state-run news agency rings in the New Year with an upbeat article on new rules, effective today, which allow foreign journalists to travel and conduct interviews without wading through ponderous application processes. The story refers to a Reuters article about an ethnic Mongolian political prisoner, datelined Hohhot, that was among the first to be written under the new rules, and cites Reuters reporters Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard as saying the policy is working fine so far (neither are quoted directly, however):
Benjamin Lim with Reuters, who has been in China for ten years, told Xinhua that he interviewed a person on Monday without the application process as before, which he said was really a step forward.
Lim had wanted to interview the person and applied in 2004. However, the interview was not conducted until Monday due to complicated application process.
At the end of December 2006, there were 606 resident journalists from 319 foreign news organizations of 49 countries in China. They were usually based in Beijing and Shanghai, according to statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…About 3,000 to 5,000 foreign journalists came to China annually in recent years for short-term assignments.
The story also describes one state media reporter as fearing competition from the newly liberated foreign press corp. [Full Text]
See the Christian Science Monitor’s report on the new policy when it was announced last month.
