China Clamping Down on Foreign Journalists

Sometimes all you really need to read is the denial:

"At the same time we hope that the foreign journalists will abide by the Chinese laws and regulations," [Foreign Minister] Yang [Jiechi] said Monday at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the country's largely rubber stamp parliament. "There is no such issue as Chinese police officers beating foreign journalists."

The underlying issue, beatings aside, is that around the time of the 2008 Olympics, China loosened restrictions on foreign journalists' ability to operate. This spirit of openness was controversial inside the governing elite, with some viewing it as dangerous and others (more accurately, I think) seeing it as beneficial for China. The current wave of protests in the Arab world seems to have strengthened the hands of the skeptics. Along with a general belief in free speech, I really do think openness is the right strategy for the PRC's leadership. Obviously probing journalism will result in some stories that some officials don't like. But at the end of the day, what the Chinese government and Chinese people are accomplishing is genuinely extraordinary and getting more information out about it predominantly reflects well on them.