India - China Battle Over Journalists' Visas, Last Indian Journalist Left In China Likely To Leave Soon

On Monday 12 June, China urged India to 'meet it halfway' regarding the recent disagreement over journalists working in each other's countries. This issue arose after China accused India of treating its reporters in India unfairly, and asked an Indian journalist to leave China.

At a briefing on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wenbin stated that Chinese journalists in India have unfairly encountered discriminatory arrangements in recent years.

China said that it hopes that India will continue to grant visas to Chinese journalists, eliminate alleged unreasonable constraints, and create a favourable environment for media exchanges.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has decided not to renew the visas of the last two Indian journalists who were working in China. This decision was apparently made because India took similar action against the two remaining Chinese state media journalists in India this month.

One of the Indian journalists who worked for the Hindustan Times has already left China. His visa had expired and he was unable to get it renewed.

The Press Trust of India has the last remaining reporter in China, and his visa will expire later this month. As a result of the Chinese government's decision, he will have to leave the country as well.

At the beginning of this year, India had four reporters stationed in China. However, two of them were stopped from returning to China in April because their visas were frozen.

According to Wang, Indian authorities have not been approving new visas for Chinese journalists since the year 2020. This has resulted in a significant drop from 14 to just one Chinese correspondent in India.

Meanwhile India has reportedly given its approval for temporary visas to be granted to Chinese state media reporters. This approval is for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Foreign Ministers' meeting, which is scheduled to take place in May.

This month, India's Ministry Of External Affairs expressed their hope that China would permit Indian journalists to work in their country. They further added that India allows all foreign journalists to operate within their borders