Global Courant 2023-05-31 19:15:00
BEIJING — China blamed India on Wednesday for a tit-for-tat visa spat in which they effectively expelled each other’s journalists, heightening tensions between neighboring powers.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the Indian government of arbitrarily shortening visas for Chinese journalists and not extending visas since 2020.
“The visa of the last remaining Chinese journalist in India has also expired,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a regular news conference.
Beijing has had “no choice but to take appropriate countermeasures,” Ms. Mao said without specifying such measures, in response to reports that China retaliated by blocking Indian journalists’ visa renewal applications.
Mr Ananth Krishnan, a correspondent for Indian newspaper The Hindu, wrote on Twitter that there was now “only one accredited Indian reporter in Beijing”.
Ms Mao said a return to normal depends on “if India can work in the same direction as China, providing the same convenience and assistance to Chinese journalists in India”.
Relations have been tense since a high-altitude border clash in June 2020 that left 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops dead.
China and India have since gathered tens of thousands of soldiers along the border who remain there despite 18 rounds of talks between top military officials.
India is also trying to establish closer ties with Western countries, including Quad members the United States, Japan and Australia, which see Delhi as an alternative to China.
Beijing has not named a new ambassador to New Delhi since former envoy Sun Weidong left the post last year.
China has historically used journalist visas to exert diplomatic pressure, with Beijing expelling 13 American journalists in 2020 as relations between the rival superpowers plummeted at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. AFP
