London: The British Broadcasting Corp.’s World News has been taken off the air in China following the U.K.’s removal of Chinese state-backed broadcaster CGTN’s license last week.
BBC reports on China violated regulations that news bulletins should be “truthful and fair,” China’s National Radio and Television Administration said in a statement early on Friday in Beijing. The U.K.’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a Twitter post that the decision represented an “unacceptable curtailing of media freedom” and that it would damage China’s reputation.
“We are disappointed that the Chinese authorities have decided to take this course of action,” a BBC spokeswoman said by email. “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.”
The situation escalated when Hong Kong’s public broadcaster RTHK said in a statement it would suspend the relay of BBC World Service and BBC News Weekly from 11 p.m. on Friday, citing the decision by China’s National Radio and Television Administration as the reason for its move.
Following the decision by U.K. regulator Ofcom to revoke CGTN’s license last week, Chinese officials had complained about the BBC’s reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic, and asked the broadcaster to apologize. The BBC said at the time that it rejected “unfounded accusations of fake news or ideological bias.” The London-based BBC has recently published and broadcast reports critical of President Xi Jinping’s government on censorship and camps in the country’s Xinjiang region.
China’s decision to ban BBC World News in mainland China is an unacceptable curtailing of media freedom. China has some of the most severe restrictions on media & internet freedoms across the globe, & this latest step will only damage China’s reputation in the eyes of the world.
— Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) February 11, 2021
Ofcom said it removed CGTN’s British license because the holder didn’t have editorial control. CGTN had asked for its license to be transferred to an entity called China Global Television Network Corp., but “crucial information” was missing from the application. The new owner would have been disqualified from holding a license as it would be controlled by a body ultimately directed by the Chinese Communist Party, Ofcom said.
Tensions between China and the U.K. have been rising. Last year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson banned Shenzhen telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co. from Britain’s next-generation wireless networks amid security concerns. –Bloomberg
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