Tech In Asia
China has unblocked the Chinese-language sites of both The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, according to a story Monday by Steven Millward for Tech In Asia.
Colleen Schwartz, with corporate communications for the Wall Street Journal, confirmed via e-mail that the Journal’s site had been unblocked.
Heather Carpenter, public relations manager with Reuters, also confirmed via e-mail Monday that Reuters has been unblocked in China.
Millward reports that the WSJ was blocked in November.
The Chinese edition of Reuters went blank at around the same time. That all came amidst a global controversy over foreign reporters’ visas. Reuters’ veteran reporter Paul Mooney was one of several foreign reporters that faced being kicked out of China at the end of the year as authorities seemed not very keen on renewing their journalists’ visa. However, all the affected reporters were eventually granted the paperwork to keep their bureaus operating.
In December, Poynter wrote about journalists from The New York Times and Bloomberg News getting press credentials from China, and in November, about staff leaving Bloomberg News after charges of self-censorship on a mothballed story about China.
In January of last year, Tom Rosenstiel wrote for Poynter about Chinese press censorship.
It is telling that the protests in China this week over government control involve a newspaper and censorship — not a military tank in a public square.
China has walked the fragile road of modernism and capitalism without democracy. But history keeps repeating one message about trying to balance economic advances without freedom. Information by its nature is democratizing.
