- Friday, February 28, 2025
The Narendra Modi government said earlier this month that while Chinese reporters were working in India without any difficulty, it was not the case with their Indian counterparts in China.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA IS set to lose its media presence in China, the world’s second largest economy, amid deteriorating ties as Beijing has asked the last Indian journalist on the Chinese soil to depart, Bloomberg reported.
The Chinese authorities have ordered a reporter of the Press Trust of India to leave the country this person, the news outlet reported citing an informed source.
Indian media houses had four reporters in China earlier this year. While The Hindustan Times reporter left over the weekend, two journalists from The Hindu newspaper and public broadcaster Prasar Bharati were denied renewal of visas in April.
Neither China’s foreign ministry nor India’s ministry of external affairs responded to Bloomberg’s requests for comment on the matter.
In May, Chinese foreign minister spokesperson Mao Ning said one Chinese journalist, who was left in India, was awaiting renewal of the visa. New Delhi had earlier rejected visa renewal applications from two journalists from China’s Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television.
The Narendra Modi government said earlier this month that while Chinese reporters were working in India without any difficulty, it was not the case with their Indian counterparts in China, the Bloomberg report added. It also said that the neighbours were over the matter.
The row over issuing visa started a few months ago over Indian journalists hiring assistants in China to help with reporting, said informed Indian officials on the condition of anonymity. Beijing came up with measures limiting employment to three individuals at a time and they must come from a pool provided by the Chinese authorities, according to the sources. India doesn’t have any such cap.
The visa row comes as India hosts the G20 and Shanghai Cooperation Dialogue meetings this year. Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi in September as India currently holds the presidency of the grouping.
Relations between India and China have remained tense since a deadly clash on the Himalayan frontier in June 2020. While Beijing wanted to keep the dispute separate from the overall relationship and focus on trade and economic ties, New Delhi has said relations cannot go back to normal until the border issue is settled.
China has had a row also over journalists with countries such as the US and Australia.
