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China Eases Licensing Rules For Foreign Media Sources

Posted by timothy on from the now-transmit-all-yuanna dept.

The New York Times reports that China has "agreed to loosen restrictions on foreign news and information providers inside the country, settling a trade dispute with the United States, the European Union and Canada." Formerly, all such news sources required licensing through China's official Xinhua News Agency. Note that the focus seems to be on financial reporting and information, rather than all forms of news reporting.

5 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Press visas by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Its about time. On my last trip to China just a couple of months ago, I did not even bother trying to get a media visa even though I'd been asked to cover/photograph a story for the military press. I declined that story offer simply because getting the press visa was too much of a hassle and you had to undergo extra hassles for all of the camera equipment. Traveling on a tourist visa through China is much easier and they don't give you any grief for even lots of camera equipment.

    In fact, the whole visa issue always is a hassle. If countries wanted to ensure that people come and spend money, then why to they (US included) make getting a visa so difficult? I had to either travel to Washington DC to the Chinese embassy or pay a special travel office $140 to broker the visa on my passport for me.

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    1. Re:Press visas by Roland+Piquepaille · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If countries wanted to ensure that people come and spend money, then why to they (US included) make getting a visa so difficult?

      China doesn't need foreigners to come spend money on its soil, its making a fortune exporting good abroad anyway.

      As for the US, it's another ballgame: the country's attitude toward visas oscillates between the "keeping these filthy underpaid workers from taking american jobs out" attitude in peace time, to full-blown paranoid "the terrorists are coming!" when national security is threatened.

    2. Re:Press visas by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Insightful
      There's no reason to get a journalist visa unless you're a bonafide journalist. I saw that you took pictures of the toilets - no serious journalist would pull stuff like that, it's a guaranteed mark of the China greenhorn.

      The US makes getting a visa difficult because Chinese people have a big problem with not going home after their visas expire. China makes getting journalist visas difficult because foreign journalists have a big problem with lying their asses off and distorting stories to fit their political viewpoints. A visa is a sovereign act of a country, it's not like buying tickets to a Mets game. Believe it or not, governments occasionally have other priorities than inviting foreign tourists to spend money.

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      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Press visas by BWJones · · Score: 3, Funny

      There's no reason to get a journalist visa unless you're a bonafide journalist. I saw that you took pictures of the toilets - no serious journalist would pull stuff like that, it's a guaranteed mark of the China greenhorn.

      Ah, thanks for your astute commentary on something you obviously know bollocks about. I have some "news" for you... that is my personal blog and I can put anything I want in it. What gets published in the press is another story entirely.

      I have some more "news" for you. This problem you cite of people not wanting to return to China is a demographic one. I am seeing educated people returning to China in droves. They have seen the promise and prosperity possible there and are making a killing. The sight of Porsches and BMWs filling the streets in Chengdu was a surprise to say the least.

      You obviously have a bias against the press or know absolutely nothing about the profession. Either that or you get all your news from Fox, because most journalists I know are remarkably unbiased in their reporting in all corners of the world. China is changing and while they used to have more problems than they currently do with issues of transparency related to human rights, they have much to show the rest of the world now. Granted there are problems with such rapid growth, but the country is so different from what it was just 10 years ago.

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  2. Who cares... by cosmocain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...about financial information when all human-rights-related things still get filtered? this is no good news for the masses, it only shows the two-faced attitude of china towards capitalism/communism.