Understanding China Is Getting Harder
CHINA
It has never been easy to write about China, but today access is harder, and sources are more limited than they have been in decades. The pandemic hasn’t helped; since March 2020, China’s borders have been closed to most non-Chinese citizens. The result of this is that it is even more difficult for outsiders—and even most Chinese—to understand what is happening inside the country.
As a journalist, you risk being targeted by an ever changing set of measures by the Chinese government. A weaponized visa process means your credentials may be renewed for six months or denied without explanation. You, or more likely your Chinese colleague, might be detained as the Bloomberg reporter Haze Fan was in 2020.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China reported that the government expelled at least 18 foreign journalists in the first half of
