on, that we did put some of these points to the chinese embassy, but as yet, nothing from them. but thank you very much to all of my guests today to amy qin, sha hua, meera selva, cedric alviani, and steve vines. the media show will be back at the same time next week. so thank you very much for watching and goodbye. hello. it feels a little like our weather has been sulking so far this week kind of stuck in a rut of greyness and lingering cloud. it s not in a great hurry to get out of that position through today, either. we did see some sunshine on wednesday across central and eastern england, and i m hopeful we will see some for at least a time today this break in the clouds ahead of a weak weather front coming in from the west. so through the morning,
i was always hoping to quote people by name. that s what journalists do. it gives credibility to the quote. i now find myself in recent months and weeks never using people s names unless, of course, they re official spokespeople for an organisation, because it s too dangerous. and during the protests, when they were at their height in hong kong in 2019, a lot of young people would say to me, oh, yes, you can use my name in the paper. and even then, i would say to them, you know, it s not my business to get you into trouble. it s my business to report what s going on. i would strongly suggest not using your name. so this is something which i haven t experienced before in hong kong. but certainly, people who are familiar with covering the mainland would do this all the time. amy, i wanted to invite you to tell us briefly why you re in taiwan now, because you left beijing last year and you d been reporting from china,
let s say, tech surveillance the next day, to the education sector, and then maybe write something about, i don t know, like, rivers, you know, and i think it s very easy to get things wrong. the mistakes sometimes get amplified then in the chinese space. and it often also gets seized upon by, let s say, propaganda outlets or nationalists. but i think underlying all of this is also a structural issue with a lot of media companies that we should actually double down on having more people reporting on china in more depth, with more expertise, also language expertise. we ll explore that in a bit more detail a little later because you raise some very interesting points. amy, you re the new york times china correspondent, based in taiwan. and we ll come to the reasons for that in a moment. but how then do you follow what is happening on the ground in china when you re not in china?
now the us as well. like i said, the us government has, at least in our case, - the chinese government has stressed that this is part - of a broader us china politics. this isn t punishment- for our coverage in particular, but it is definitely a very i difficult time for all foreign media operating in china. meera from the reuters institute. tit for tat was mentioned by amy. give us a little bit of context to that. yeah, i mean, first of all, i m in awe of all your reporting and it s being done under incredibly difficult circumstances and thank you for persevering. i think the tit for tat is part of a global trend of weaponising journalism, and journalists are the casualties. so we have leaders in several countries, including the united states and the previous administration in particular, being very openly critical of their own journalists and their own media outlets, as well as foreign ones, casting aspersions on the integrity of journalists, casting
increasingly have to rely on stringers as their own reporters are working outside china s borders. and steve vines, the observer s man in hong kong since the 1980s, said this week that it was no longer safe for him to be there and has decided to come back to the uk. so what is the situation forjournalists in china and for those trying to cover the country from afar? let me introduce you to my guests. i mentioned steve vines, he is one of them, former china correspondent for the observer, now back in the uk. sha hua is a correspondent for the wall streetjournal based in hong kong. cedric alviani is head of the east asia bureau for reporters without borders and isjoining us from taiwan. amy qin is china correspondent for the new york times, based in beijing, now works in taiwan, she is on the line from california. and meera selva, deputy director of the reuters institute at oxford university. welcome to all of you, thank you for being a part of the programme, especially those who are joi