difficult that was. leaving behind friends and colleagues, being aware that friends are in jail, being aware that there are people who are infinitely more courageous than me, still trying to do what journalists are supposed to do under all sorts of threats which now exists. the whole thing is miserable. we must leave it there because time has beaten us. i should say, as i did earlier 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.
i think what there s kind of almost a disconnect between what s happening on the upper echelons and how it s affecting journalists on the ground. so these are people s lives. these are people who have moved families and who have built careers and have made plans. and the fact that these plans can be upended at any moment is incredibly unsettling for all foreign correspondents. i think working for any organisation. when you look at organisations like trt world, for example, the turkish one, there are lots of young journalists in britain who did join them because they were an employer that paid well, offered a decent gig in a certain format. you were allowed to report freely on any part of the world as long as it wasn t turkey. so you can t necessarily blame journalists for joining these organisations, but you do end up with a very, very toxic, jittery environment i think. amy, i mean, that takes me back to you and simply to ask, how hard was it to leave
with at the time in order to help you and others? i can t speak to those direct conversations, | as i certainly wasn t a part i of them, but i can definitely imagine that they were - interested and involved in it as well. people will remember the fact that the last two australian journalists in china ended up spending theirfinal days in the country living inside the australian embassy before they left. right. yeah. i mean, you know what happened with john sudworth with the bbci and the uk journalists - with australians and also 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
also language expertise. we ll explore that in a bit more detail a little later on 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? a great question, and it s something that we have been trying to work- through in the year that we ve been expelled from china. in taiwan, luckily, i had been- in china personally for about eight years before we were kicked out. and so over that time, i was able to build up. a network of sources. and luckily, i can still tap - into that network and try to get a sense of what s happening on the ground. and i make more of an effort now to keep in touch with people. - but of course, that is very difficult because of- surveillance of apps.
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 joining us at anti social hours wherever you are in the world. steve, i mentioned your story, it makes sense to start with you. working in hong kong since the 1980s through a pretty amazing passage of history. i mentioned the observer, but you have worked for other outlets as well. how widespread has your work been read and consumed? well, i hate to be somebody to create a surprise at the beginning, but actually more recently i have been working for the opposition, the sunday times, but i did indeed come to hong kong with the observer