Chinese media freedom in a ‘sensitive’ period
I was in London on Friday, speaking at a seminar joint-hosted by the BBC Chinese service and the British think tank Chatham House called “Media Freedom in China and the Role of International Broadcasters.” There was a lot of impassioned discussion about the range of challenges facing international broadcasters, from slashed budgets to the recent…
No spring in China, but are the media heading for a fall?
Here’s a quick toss to a video posted on YouTube by Australian Broadcasting’s reporter Stephen McDonell. He and his crew decided to confront some Chinese security types (not surprisingly they didn’t identify themselves) who had been following them in Wenzhou while reporting in China. The team was covering religion, including underground or “house” churches–those not…
Q&A: Filmmaker talks Ai Weiwei and jailed activists
Three years after a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in May 2008, CPJ spoke to documentary filmmaker Alison Klayman. The director is working on the upcoming “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” about the recently detained Chinese artist who documented the aftermath of the earthquake and published the names of children killed in the collapse of frail…
U.S-China disagreement, not dialogue, on human rights
The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which concluded in Washington today, may not have produced much in the way of specific commitments on human rights issues. But media appearances surrounding the talks have provided a forum for top leaders to re-state their views in public.
U.S.-China dialogue must keep focus on human rights
China’s powerful State Councilor Dai Bingguo told U.S. officials today that his country was “making progress” on human rights issues, according to Agence France-Presse. The remarks, made at the start of the two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue, do not bode well for U.S. efforts to keep human rights on the table after last month’s exchange on human…
Only some Chinese writers allowed to attend PEN Festival
The stage was full of empty chairs on Thursday at “China in Two Acts,” part of the five-day PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York, which ended on Sunday. A two-part program featured writer Zha Jianying speaking for the first part followed by a panel discussion in the second. The chairs, a…
How the U.S. should raise human rights in China dialogue
One day ahead of two-day bilateral talks with the U.S., China’s Foreign Ministry rejected what it labeled “interference” in the country’s internal affairs under the rubric of human rights, according to international news reports. Despite this obstructionist tone, CPJ hopes that Washington officials, led by Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Posner,…
