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Journalist Maria Ressa, winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, testifies before a US Senate foreign relations subcommittee on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Activists warn US lawmakers to counter media restrictions in countries influenced by China

  • Rights campaigners including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa testified before a US Senate subcommittee about China’s influence
  • Recommendations included sanctions on those seen as undercutting press freedom and refuge for persecuted journalists
Human rights

The US must step up efforts to stem deteriorating press freedoms across East Asia, including supporting media outlets on mainland China’s periphery, lawmakers were told on Wednesday.

A panel of rights campaigners issued the recommendations – including sanctions on those seen as undercutting press freedom and refuge for persecuted journalists – to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, amid warnings from advocacy groups that some governments want to replicate Beijing’s grip over media content.

Beijing’s ability to construct “the world’s most sophisticated and multilayered apparatus of information control has showed that such a project is possible and it’s played a role in normalising digital repression,” said Sarah Cook, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, a Washington-based democracy watchdog.

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Journalist Maria Ressa in Oslo for Nobel Peace Prize

Journalist Maria Ressa in Oslo for Nobel Peace Prize

The number of jailed journalists globally reached a record high last year, with China and Myanmar placing first and second in a ranking of the “world’s worst jailers of journalists” compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Vietnam placed fourth, after Egypt.

Cook and others pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as having provided a pretext for hardline governments in the region to ramp up surveillance and crack down on freedoms of speech and assembly.

Upcoming politically sensitive events in the region were also likely to prompt further crackdowns, including a presidential election in the Philippines and China’s 20th Party Congress this year, when Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to embark on a third five-year term.

Since taking office in 2013, Xi has doubled down on Beijing’s efforts to “tell China’s story well” to the outside world, investing heavily in the foreign reach of state media outlets, running paid supplements in foreign newspapers, and leaning on Western social media platforms as a megaphone for the government’s diplomats.

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“Wherever the readers are, wherever the audience is, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles,” Xi declared in 2015 during a visit to the Chinese military’s official newspaper.

Lawmakers on Wednesday expressed particular concern about the impact of those efforts on Taiwan, which Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, characterised as the target of more disinformation “than any other place in the world,” particularly in the run-up to the self-governed island’s presidential election in 2020.

The US Congress funds a number of American news outlets, such as Radio Free Asia, that seek to reach global audiences living in or near countries with heavily restricted flows of information.

Joey Siu, policy adviser at UK-based Hong Kong Watch, called on lawmakers to not only increase that funding but also extend such financial support to foreign outlets operating in places “proximate” to China such as Taiwan and Japan, “to ensure the continuous and timely coverage of developments”.

Joey Siu (R), policy adviser at Hong Kong Watch, and Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and co-founder of Rappler, testify on “The Assault on Freedom of Expression in Asia” during a US Senate foreign relations subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, March 30, 2022. Photo: Agence France-Presse

Siu and Cook also called on the US to provide humanitarian relocation channels to journalists facing persecution in their home countries.

Drawing particular attention on Wednesday as a place in which Beijing has sought to crack down on freedom of expression was Hong Kong, on which the Chinese government imposed national security legislation in 2020 banning acts of secession, among other offences.

Authorities in the semi-autonomous city have made some 150 arrests under the law’s authority, including a number of journalists. Two prominent news outlets, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to close last year following arrests of their senior staff and asset seizures.

And having long enjoyed relative online freedom compared to the rest of China, Hongkongers were now unable to access some websites, said Siu, including that of Hong Kong Watch.

Last year, for example, authorities invoked the national security law to block access to HKChronicles, a local website that published first-hand accounts of the anti-government protests of 2019.

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Joining Siu and Cook before Wednesday’s panel was Maria Ressa, a veteran journalist from the Philippines who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.

Citing the proliferation of disinformation on platforms like Facebook in the Philippines, she urged US lawmakers to either reform or revoke section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – legislation that provides immunity to social media sites from civil liability based on third-party content.

“The platforms – and the autocrats that exploit them – must be held accountable, and democratic governments must move faster,” Ressa told lawmakers.

Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took power, 22 journalists have been killed in the country, according to a tally by the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP).

Against that backdrop, Ressa called on the US government to also consider imposing Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against Philippine officials, referring to punitive measures that Washington has deployed in recent years against a number of state actors – notably China – for alleged human rights abuses.
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