BEIJING (CHINA) – The BBC received flak from Chinese official and social media on Friday in an escalating diplomatic dispute, a day after Britain’s media regulator cancelled the TV licence of Chinese state media outlet CGTN.
On Thursday, Britain’s Ofcom revoked the license of CGTN, the English-language sister channel of state broadcaster CCTV, after coming to a conclusion that China’s ruling Communist Party had ultimate editorial responsibility for the channel.
Minutes later, China’s foreign ministry issued a statement accusing the British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) of promoting “fake news” in its COVID-19 reporting, demanding an apology. It said that the broadcaster had politicised the pandemic and “rehashed theories about covering up by China”.
The BBC stood by its statement that its reporting is fair and unbiased.
Separately on Thursday, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported that Britain had in the past year had driven out three Chinese spies who were there on journalism visas.
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Communist Party-backed tabloid the Global Times, said on Twitter, “I highly suspect that the BBC has been closely instigated by the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK. It has become a bastion of the Western public opinion war against China.”
The foreign ministry’s criticism of the BBC was among the trending videos on China’s Weibo social media platform on Friday.
“BBC shall not become Bad-mouthing Broadcasting Corporation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Twitter.
BBC broadcasts, like those of most major Western news outlets, are stopped in China.
Some people called for the BBC to be expelled, as a response to CGTN’s license being revoked.
“The BBC has long been stationed in Beijing, yet has always held ideological prejudice and broadcast fake news from its platform, deliberately defaming China. After so many years, it’s past time that we took action,” one Weibo user said.
China’s foreign ministry said the report had no factual basis. The Global Times said in an editorial on Friday that the BBC had “seriously violated journalistic ethics”.