#worldpost asia pacific

[matterconcern-blog]

New Post has been published on Matter Concern

New Post has been published on https://matterconcern.com/archives/39012

In The Uncertain World Of Trump, China Seeks To Steady The Ship

China is emerging as a reassuringly stable, mature and responsible power in these uncertain times.

[newssplashy]

World: China forces out BuzzFeed journalist

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa.

HONG KONG — An American reporter for BuzzFeed News has become the latest foreign journalist to be forced from China, which has a history of retaliating against news organizations and individual journalists for critical coverage.

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa. “They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why,” she wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Rajagopalan has written extensively about surveillance and mass incarceration of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, subjects the Chinese authorities have tried to block journalists from covering.

This month U.N. human rights experts confronted Chinese officials over estimates that 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities were being held in re-education camps. Chinese officials denied the existence of the camps, saying instead that minor criminals were being assisted with rehabilitation.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said Rajagopalan’s visa denial was “extremely regrettable and unacceptable for a government that repeatedly insists it welcomes foreign media to cover the country.”

Rajagopalan was the first reporter for BuzzFeed permitted to work on a regular basis in China by the Foreign Ministry. The ministry and security agencies have traditionally not allowed online-only news publications to have reporters officially live in China.

But in recent years, several online-only news organizations have asked China to give residency status to reporters they wanted to post in China. The authorities have responding by giving them temporary visas that are more easily revoked.

The Chinese government had told BuzzFeed it would allow Rajagopalan to stay in China on a visa that was valid for six months, and the visa could be renewed with the approval of officials. Rajagopalan’s visa was renewed once, but officials decided this spring not to renew it another time.

This was the same system China set up several years ago for The Huffington Post, which, in coordination with WorldPost, wanted to station an American reporter, Matt Sheehan, in Beijing. Chinese officials granted Sheehan a renewable six-month visa, and Sheehan lived in Beijing until he decided to return to the United States.

The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed had de facto bureaus in Beijing, even if those existed under a system separate from the one under which traditional news organizations operated.

Traditional news organizations generally get a one-year renewable visa for their reporters residing in China and have bureaus officially recognized by the Foreign Ministry. But in recent years, Chinese officials have signaled that they may not renew those visas if reporters write articles that officials deem to be out of bounds.

In December 2015, Ursula Gauthier, a reporter in Beijing for the French newsweekly L’Obs, was denied a renewal of her standard one-year journalist’s resident visa. Foreign Ministry officials had criticized her for writing an article on the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Global Times, a state-run nationalist newspaper, published at least one editorial criticizing her before she was forced to leave. No foreign journalist had been rebuked by Chinese officials in such a manner in many years.

After Bloomberg reported in 2012 about the wealth accumulated by the family of Xi Jinping, who became China’s leader a year later, the Foreign Ministry blocked all its applications for new journalist visas. The New York Times also had difficulty obtaining further residency visas for journalists after publishing stories in 2012 about how the family of Wen Jiabao, then premier, grew rich during his leadership.

On a trip to Beijing in late 2013, Vice President Joe Biden criticized China over the use of visas to pressure foreign media outlets.

Rajagopalan lived in Beijing and worked for Thomson Reuters from 2012 to 2016. She left China after joining Buzzfeed in July 2016. Buzzfeed editors hired her with the aim of posting her to China, and she reported on Asia for BuzzFeed from Bangkok while the company negotiated with Chinese officials over a journalist’s visa. After China granted the six-month visa, she returned to Beijing in March 2017.

The U.S. State Department and the embassy in Beijing did not reply to email requests for comment on Rajagopalan’s forced departure. The State Department also did not reply to a question sent by email on the broader question of visa reciprocity — whether the United States government should engage in tit-for-tat responses when the Chinese government denies visas to journalists.

The visa issue has been under serious discussion among U.S. officials since the Obama administration. In Washington, officials are leaning toward taking harder measures on China on a wide range of matters, from trade to visas to the Chinese military’s actions in the Pacific.

Rajagopalan said it was “bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there.”

She wrote that she was moving to a new position with BuzzFeed focusing on technology and human rights and reporting from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“I also want to make clear that though I can’t do it from inside China anymore, I’m not going to stop reporting on and speaking about state surveillance, repression and incarceration of millions of Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” she added.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

AUSTIN RAMZY and EDWARD WONG © 2018 The New York Times

source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/08/world-china-forces-out-buzzfeed_23.html

[sonofsandwich]

I’m back!

[matterconcern-blog]

New Post has been published on Matter Concern

New Post has been published on https://matterconcern.com/archives/38966

These Charts Show Why China's Economy Won't Overtake America's Anytime Soon

China probably won’t become the world’s largest economy for at least another 10 to 15 years.

[newssplashy]

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa.

HONG KONG — An American reporter for BuzzFeed News has become the latest foreign journalist to be forced from China, which has a history of retaliating against news organizations and individual journalists for critical coverage.

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa. “They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why,” she wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Rajagopalan has written extensively about surveillance and mass incarceration of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, subjects the Chinese authorities have tried to block journalists from covering.

This month U.N. human rights experts confronted Chinese officials over estimates that 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities were being held in re-education camps. Chinese officials denied the existence of the camps, saying instead that minor criminals were being assisted with rehabilitation.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said Rajagopalan’s visa denial was “extremely regrettable and unacceptable for a government that repeatedly insists it welcomes foreign media to cover the country.”

Rajagopalan was the first reporter for BuzzFeed permitted to work on a regular basis in China by the Foreign Ministry. The ministry and security agencies have traditionally not allowed online-only news publications to have reporters officially live in China.

But in recent years, several online-only news organizations have asked China to give residency status to reporters they wanted to post in China. The authorities have responding by giving them temporary visas that are more easily revoked.

The Chinese government had told BuzzFeed it would allow Rajagopalan to stay in China on a visa that was valid for six months, and the visa could be renewed with the approval of officials. Rajagopalan’s visa was renewed once, but officials decided this spring not to renew it another time.

This was the same system China set up several years ago for The Huffington Post, which, in coordination with WorldPost, wanted to station an American reporter, Matt Sheehan, in Beijing. Chinese officials granted Sheehan a renewable six-month visa, and Sheehan lived in Beijing until he decided to return to the United States.

The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed had de facto bureaus in Beijing, even if those existed under a system separate from the one under which traditional news organizations operated.

Traditional news organizations generally get a one-year renewable visa for their reporters residing in China and have bureaus officially recognized by the Foreign Ministry. But in recent years, Chinese officials have signaled that they may not renew those visas if reporters write articles that officials deem to be out of bounds.

In December 2015, Ursula Gauthier, a reporter in Beijing for the French newsweekly L’Obs, was denied a renewal of her standard one-year journalist’s resident visa. Foreign Ministry officials had criticized her for writing an article on the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Global Times, a state-run nationalist newspaper, published at least one editorial criticizing her before she was forced to leave. No foreign journalist had been rebuked by Chinese officials in such a manner in many years.

After Bloomberg reported in 2012 about the wealth accumulated by the family of Xi Jinping, who became China’s leader a year later, the Foreign Ministry blocked all its applications for new journalist visas. The New York Times also had difficulty obtaining further residency visas for journalists after publishing stories in 2012 about how the family of Wen Jiabao, then premier, grew rich during his leadership.

On a trip to Beijing in late 2013, Vice President Joe Biden criticized China over the use of visas to pressure foreign media outlets.

Rajagopalan lived in Beijing and worked for Thomson Reuters from 2012 to 2016. She left China after joining Buzzfeed in July 2016. Buzzfeed editors hired her with the aim of posting her to China, and she reported on Asia for BuzzFeed from Bangkok while the company negotiated with Chinese officials over a journalist’s visa. After China granted the six-month visa, she returned to Beijing in March 2017.

The U.S. State Department and the embassy in Beijing did not reply to email requests for comment on Rajagopalan’s forced departure. The State Department also did not reply to a question sent by email on the broader question of visa reciprocity — whether the United States government should engage in tit-for-tat responses when the Chinese government denies visas to journalists.

The visa issue has been under serious discussion among U.S. officials since the Obama administration. In Washington, officials are leaning toward taking harder measures on China on a wide range of matters, from trade to visas to the Chinese military’s actions in the Pacific.

Rajagopalan said it was “bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there.”

She wrote that she was moving to a new position with BuzzFeed focusing on technology and human rights and reporting from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“I also want to make clear that though I can’t do it from inside China anymore, I’m not going to stop reporting on and speaking about state surveillance, repression and incarceration of millions of Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” she added.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

AUSTIN RAMZY and EDWARD WONG © 2018 The New York Times

via Nigerian News ➨☆LATEST NIGERIAN NEWS ☆➨GHANA NEWS➨☆ENTERTAINMENT ☆➨Hot Posts ➨☆World News ☆➨News Sp

[ronnienews]

GE, Monsanto

RC

[ina-meera]

just for info...

[matterconcern-blog]

New Post has been published on Matter Concern

New Post has been published on https://matterconcern.com/archives/38492

Against Enormous Odds, A Chinese Official Is Trying To Green Up His City

The city of Rizhao wants to go carbon neutral. It’s a tough job.

[newssplashy]

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa.

HONG KONG — An American reporter for BuzzFeed News has become the latest foreign journalist to be forced from China, which has a history of retaliating against news organizations and individual journalists for critical coverage.

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa. “They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why,” she wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Rajagopalan has written extensively about surveillance and mass incarceration of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, subjects the Chinese authorities have tried to block journalists from covering.

This month U.N. human rights experts confronted Chinese officials over estimates that 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities were being held in re-education camps. Chinese officials denied the existence of the camps, saying instead that minor criminals were being assisted with rehabilitation.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said Rajagopalan’s visa denial was “extremely regrettable and unacceptable for a government that repeatedly insists it welcomes foreign media to cover the country.”

Rajagopalan was the first reporter for BuzzFeed permitted to work on a regular basis in China by the Foreign Ministry. The ministry and security agencies have traditionally not allowed online-only news publications to have reporters officially live in China.

But in recent years, several online-only news organizations have asked China to give residency status to reporters they wanted to post in China. The authorities have responding by giving them temporary visas that are more easily revoked.

The Chinese government had told BuzzFeed it would allow Rajagopalan to stay in China on a visa that was valid for six months, and the visa could be renewed with the approval of officials. Rajagopalan’s visa was renewed once, but officials decided this spring not to renew it another time.

This was the same system China set up several years ago for The Huffington Post, which, in coordination with WorldPost, wanted to station an American reporter, Matt Sheehan, in Beijing. Chinese officials granted Sheehan a renewable six-month visa, and Sheehan lived in Beijing until he decided to return to the United States.

The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed had de facto bureaus in Beijing, even if those existed under a system separate from the one under which traditional news organizations operated.

Traditional news organizations generally get a one-year renewable visa for their reporters residing in China and have bureaus officially recognized by the Foreign Ministry. But in recent years, Chinese officials have signaled that they may not renew those visas if reporters write articles that officials deem to be out of bounds.

In December 2015, Ursula Gauthier, a reporter in Beijing for the French newsweekly L’Obs, was denied a renewal of her standard one-year journalist’s resident visa. Foreign Ministry officials had criticized her for writing an article on the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Global Times, a state-run nationalist newspaper, published at least one editorial criticizing her before she was forced to leave. No foreign journalist had been rebuked by Chinese officials in such a manner in many years.

After Bloomberg reported in 2012 about the wealth accumulated by the family of Xi Jinping, who became China’s leader a year later, the Foreign Ministry blocked all its applications for new journalist visas. The New York Times also had difficulty obtaining further residency visas for journalists after publishing stories in 2012 about how the family of Wen Jiabao, then premier, grew rich during his leadership.

On a trip to Beijing in late 2013, Vice President Joe Biden criticized China over the use of visas to pressure foreign media outlets.

Rajagopalan lived in Beijing and worked for Thomson Reuters from 2012 to 2016. She left China after joining Buzzfeed in July 2016. Buzzfeed editors hired her with the aim of posting her to China, and she reported on Asia for BuzzFeed from Bangkok while the company negotiated with Chinese officials over a journalist’s visa. After China granted the six-month visa, she returned to Beijing in March 2017.

The U.S. State Department and the embassy in Beijing did not reply to email requests for comment on Rajagopalan’s forced departure. The State Department also did not reply to a question sent by email on the broader question of visa reciprocity — whether the United States government should engage in tit-for-tat responses when the Chinese government denies visas to journalists.

The visa issue has been under serious discussion among U.S. officials since the Obama administration. In Washington, officials are leaning toward taking harder measures on China on a wide range of matters, from trade to visas to the Chinese military’s actions in the Pacific.

Rajagopalan said it was “bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there.”

She wrote that she was moving to a new position with BuzzFeed focusing on technology and human rights and reporting from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“I also want to make clear that though I can’t do it from inside China anymore, I’m not going to stop reporting on and speaking about state surveillance, repression and incarceration of millions of Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” she added.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

AUSTIN RAMZY and EDWARD WONG © 2018 The New York Times

via Nigerian News ➨☆LATEST NIGERIAN NEWS ☆➨GHANA NEWS➨☆ENTERTAINMENT ☆➨Hot Posts ➨☆World News ☆➨News Sp

[matterconcern-blog]

New Post has been published on Matter Concern

New Post has been published on https://matterconcern.com/archives/37150

What Really Happens At China’s Biggest Annual Political Gathering

What you need to know about the meeting taking place in Beijing known as the “Two Sessions.”

[newssplashy]

World: China forces out BuzzFeed journalist

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa.

HONG KONG — An American reporter for BuzzFeed News has become the latest foreign journalist to be forced from China, which has a history of retaliating against news organizations and individual journalists for critical coverage.

Megha Rajagopalan, who was China bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, said it was not clear why China’s Foreign Ministry had declined to issue her a new journalist visa. “They say this is a process thing, we are not totally clear why,” she wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Rajagopalan has written extensively about surveillance and mass incarceration of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, subjects the Chinese authorities have tried to block journalists from covering.

This month U.N. human rights experts confronted Chinese officials over estimates that 1 million or more Uighurs and other minorities were being held in re-education camps. Chinese officials denied the existence of the camps, saying instead that minor criminals were being assisted with rehabilitation.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said Rajagopalan’s visa denial was “extremely regrettable and unacceptable for a government that repeatedly insists it welcomes foreign media to cover the country.”

Rajagopalan was the first reporter for BuzzFeed permitted to work on a regular basis in China by the Foreign Ministry. The ministry and security agencies have traditionally not allowed online-only news publications to have reporters officially live in China.

But in recent years, several online-only news organizations have asked China to give residency status to reporters they wanted to post in China. The authorities have responding by giving them temporary visas that are more easily revoked.

The Chinese government had told BuzzFeed it would allow Rajagopalan to stay in China on a visa that was valid for six months, and the visa could be renewed with the approval of officials. Rajagopalan’s visa was renewed once, but officials decided this spring not to renew it another time.

This was the same system China set up several years ago for The Huffington Post, which, in coordination with WorldPost, wanted to station an American reporter, Matt Sheehan, in Beijing. Chinese officials granted Sheehan a renewable six-month visa, and Sheehan lived in Beijing until he decided to return to the United States.

The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed had de facto bureaus in Beijing, even if those existed under a system separate from the one under which traditional news organizations operated.

Traditional news organizations generally get a one-year renewable visa for their reporters residing in China and have bureaus officially recognized by the Foreign Ministry. But in recent years, Chinese officials have signaled that they may not renew those visas if reporters write articles that officials deem to be out of bounds.

In December 2015, Ursula Gauthier, a reporter in Beijing for the French newsweekly L’Obs, was denied a renewal of her standard one-year journalist’s resident visa. Foreign Ministry officials had criticized her for writing an article on the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang. Global Times, a state-run nationalist newspaper, published at least one editorial criticizing her before she was forced to leave. No foreign journalist had been rebuked by Chinese officials in such a manner in many years.

After Bloomberg reported in 2012 about the wealth accumulated by the family of Xi Jinping, who became China’s leader a year later, the Foreign Ministry blocked all its applications for new journalist visas. The New York Times also had difficulty obtaining further residency visas for journalists after publishing stories in 2012 about how the family of Wen Jiabao, then premier, grew rich during his leadership.

On a trip to Beijing in late 2013, Vice President Joe Biden criticized China over the use of visas to pressure foreign media outlets.

Rajagopalan lived in Beijing and worked for Thomson Reuters from 2012 to 2016. She left China after joining Buzzfeed in July 2016. Buzzfeed editors hired her with the aim of posting her to China, and she reported on Asia for BuzzFeed from Bangkok while the company negotiated with Chinese officials over a journalist’s visa. After China granted the six-month visa, she returned to Beijing in March 2017.

The U.S. State Department and the embassy in Beijing did not reply to email requests for comment on Rajagopalan’s forced departure. The State Department also did not reply to a question sent by email on the broader question of visa reciprocity — whether the United States government should engage in tit-for-tat responses when the Chinese government denies visas to journalists.

The visa issue has been under serious discussion among U.S. officials since the Obama administration. In Washington, officials are leaning toward taking harder measures on China on a wide range of matters, from trade to visas to the Chinese military’s actions in the Pacific.

Rajagopalan said it was “bittersweet to leave Beijing after spending six wonderful and eye-opening years as a journalist there.”

She wrote that she was moving to a new position with BuzzFeed focusing on technology and human rights and reporting from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“I also want to make clear that though I can’t do it from inside China anymore, I’m not going to stop reporting on and speaking about state surveillance, repression and incarceration of millions of Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” she added.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

AUSTIN RAMZY and EDWARD WONG © 2018 The New York Times

source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/08/world-china-forces-out-buzzfeed.html