China “freeze” visas of two Indian journalists

Within weeks of India asking a Chinese journalist to leave the country, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) decided to “freeze” the visas of two Indian journalists based in Beijing and has barred them from entering China.

According to a Hindustan Times report, citing people familiar with the matter, state-run Prasar Bharati’s representative in Beijing, Anshuman Mishra, and The Hindu’s correspondent, Ananth Krishnan, were informed by Chinese officials that they should not return to China as their visas were frozen. Both Mishra and Krishnan had recently visited India for personal reasons.

The move followed the Indian side informing a New Delhi-based correspondent of state-run Xinhua news agency last month that his Indian visa would not be renewed. The Xinhua correspondent was asked to return to China by 31 March and has since gone back, according to the report.

Meanwhile, two other journalists belonging to the news agency PTI and the Hindustan Times, currently in China, have been informed by the MFA that they could stay on for now even as it is considering its options and “counter measures” against what it claims is India’s unfair treatment of Chinese journalists.
The MEA declined to comment formally on the move. However, sources denied that India had taken any action against Chinese journalists in the recent past.

They said that many Chinese reporters based in Delhi had left during the Covid pandemic and not returned, and it was “factually incorrect” to suggest any “measures” that merited “counter-measures” had been employed against them, according to The Hindu report.

China is reportedly demanding more visas for its correspondents to cover India. It is also asking for current visa tenures, that need to be renewed every three months, to be increased to 12-month visas, as the Chinese MFA provides Indian journalists with year-long visas.

From about a dozen correspondents a decade ago, there were only about four Chinese journalists based in India by the end of 2022.

In 2016, India had expelled three journalists belonging to State media network Xinhua after security agencies accused them of “indulging in activities beyond their journalistic brief”. Since then, the rift in India-China ties has grown, especially after the standoff between the armies of the two countries over Chinese troops’ transgressions along the Line of Actual Control in April 2020.

The matter is reportedly now being discussed between the Indian Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese MFA, media reports said.