China-UK ties: British ambassador stands by her article on Beijing’s restrictions on foreign media

‘No doubt the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ pieces he was free to place in mainstream British media,’ Caroline Wilson says on Twitter

Envoy was earlier summoned to the Chinese foreign ministry to answer for her comments on press freedoms

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British ambassador to China Caroline Wilson. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 2:44pm, 10 Mar 2021Updated: 3:04pm, 10 Mar 2021

Britain’s ambassador to China says she stands by her article in which she complained about Beijing’s restrictions on foreign media after being summoned by the Chinese foreign ministry to answer for it.

Caroline Wilson said in the piece, which she posted on the British embassy’s official WeChat account last week, that foreign media were being misrepresented in China and that their criticism of Chinese authorities did not mean they hated China. She illustrated her point by giving examples of British media criticising the British government.

“I stand by my article,” she said on Twitter. “No doubt the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the UK stands by the 170+ pieces he was free to place in mainstream British media.”

In her article, Wilson said: “I think they [the foreign media] act in good faith and play an active role as the supervisory body of government actions, ensuring that people can get accurate information and protecting those who have no voice.”

The piece was still accessible on WeChat on Wednesday but had been removed from Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

The foreign ministry in Beijing described the article as “full of arrogance and ideological prejudice” and said Wilson complaining about restrictions on foreign media while being “selectively blind” to the suppression of Chinese media in other countries was “seriously inconsistent with the status of diplomats and the functions of diplomatic institutions”.

“What the Chinese government and people oppose is never the foreign media, but the behaviour of publishing fake news and viciously attacking China, the Chinese Communist Party and the system of China under the pretext of ‘freedom of the press’ and ‘freedom of speech’,” it said, quoting the head of the ministry’s Europe department.