The expulsion of New York Times correspondent Chris Buckley from China is an example of grave impact that the US-Chinese trade tensions have on journalists and is all the more untimely amid the coronavirus pandemic, the International Federation of Journalists said in a press release on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st May, 2020) The expulsion of New York Times correspondent Chris Buckley from China is an example of grave impact that the US-Chinese trade tensions have on journalists and is all the more untimely amid the coronavirus pandemic, the International Federation of Journalists said in a press release on Thursday.
"The tensions between the US and China are already having grave impacts on press freedom and the lives of working journalists. Expelling foreign correspondents during a health pandemic is a major roadblock to fighting the global pandemic. The IFJ urges the Chinese government to respect press freedom and uphold the rights of media workers amid external pressures," the organization said.
According to the press release, Australian-born Buckley was expelled from China with his wife after the Chinese authorities refused to renew his visa on May 8.
The IFJ sees it as part of the growing US-Chinese estrangement around trade, with mutual retaliatory steps spilling over onto one another's� journalists. The organization cites, in particular, the US restricting visas of Chinese journalists employed by non-US media to 90 days and limiting visa extensions to 90 days in response to China expelling US journalists, who now count 19, with Buckley included.
The journalist spent the past 24 years living and reporting from China, including on such notorious claims as the mass detention of the Uyghur Muslim minority and more recently the Chinese government's lack of transparency as COVID-19 spread from the epicenter of Wuhan.
