28.02.

2021 BBC News banned in China, one week after CGTN's license withdrawn in the UK - CNN

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BBC News banned in China, one week after CGTN's license withdrawn in
the UK
By Philip Wang and Jonny Hallam, CNN Business
Updated 1738 GMT (0138 HKT) February 14, 2021

Atlanta (CNN Business) — In an apparent tit-for-tat move, BBC World News has been banned from airing in China,
according to a statement from China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) on Thursday.

The announcement comes one week after Ofcom, the British media regulator, said it had withdrawn a license for
China Global Television Network, or CGTN, to broadcast in the United Kingdom.

China's NRTA claimed in its statement that BBC World News had broadcast reports on China that "infringed the
principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism."

On February 4, China's Foreign Ministry criticized the broadcaster for its coverage of China's response to the
Covid-19 pandemic, and dismissed its reports as "fake news."

"We are disappointed that the Chinese authorities have decided to take this course of action," a BBC
spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business. "The BBC is the world's most trusted international news
broadcaster and reports on stories from around the world fairly, impartially and without fear or favor."

Frustrations over coverage

Beijing has also repeatedly expressed frustration with BBC reporting on China's crackdown on Uyghur and other
ethnic Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang.

The BBC has run reports claiming that women have been systematically raped, sexually abused, and tortured at
camps in the region, where the US State Department estimates that up to 2 million people have allegedly been put
into internment camps.

Beijing — which maintains that the camps are vocational training centers that help to deradicalize citizens — has
accused the broadcaster of going on "a spree to spread explicit falsehoods about China's policy" in the region. The
BBC has said it stands by its reporting as fair and accurate.

It is unclear how much impact China's ban of BBC World

News will have in mainland China. The BBC has never been
allowed to broadcast in mainland China or into Chinese
homes. BBC World News was only ever been available in
international hotels.

But the ban has also spread to Hong Kong, where Beijing has
increasingly been exerting control. On Friday, public

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28.02.2021 BBC News banned in China, one week after CGTN's license withdrawn in the UK - CNN

broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, or RTHK,

announced that it would suspend airing BBC World Service
and BBC News Weekly.

"China's decision to ban BBC World News in mainland China

is an unacceptable curtailing of media freedom," Britain's
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. "China
has some of the most severe restrictions on media and
internet freedoms across the globe and this latest step will
only damage China's reputation in the eyes of the world."

Related Article: UK pulls license of Chinese

state-owned broadcaster CGTN
Retaliation?
The decision to yank BBC News o Chinese airwaves comes
just a week after British media regulators pulled the license of
China's state-owned international news channel CGTN. Ofcom said at the time that the broadcaster's owner, Star
China Media Limited, did not have "editorial responsibility" for the channel's output, and therefore "does not meet
the legal requirement of having control over the licensed service."

Regulators also rejected a proposal by CGTN to transfer the license to a new entity after finding that it would
ultimately still be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and therefore disqualified under UK law.

That move followed longstanding tensions between British regulators and the Chinese broadcaster. Ofcom had
previously ruled that CGTN repeatedly breached impartiality standards with its coverage of protests in Hong Kong.

-- Lauren Kent, Charles Riley, Julia Horowitz and Sophie Jeong contributed to this report.

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