CBC has had to close the 40-year-old office in Beijing after repeated denials from officials for work visas.
China has an authoritarian communist regime. This governmental system leaves China with very little freedom of speech or press. Therefore, it has been causing the Chinese to be isolated from world news, making it difficult for people outside China to learn the newest updates. They’re a humongous superpower in our society, which makes this news extremely valuable. We must become informed. According to Nation Master, as of 2000, China has 59.88 newspapers per 1000 people. Compared to Canada, which has 167.93 per 1000 people.
So, I decided to interview a teacher who used to live in China about their perspective, as they have experienced it all firsthand. When concerning the closure of the CBC office, they said that “foreign press gets shut down all the time… it’s kind of like a lever”.
When asked if the government of China has anything to hide, they brought up the recent escorting of Hu Jintao from the conference room. There is a “big political war inside the party”, and maybe CBC “has seen a bit further”, which could explain the timing of them being kicked out of Beijing.
-To read more about the leader of the communist partygetting kicked out of the conference room, read the following article:
This teacher thinks the outcome of this event will be that “China is going to close its doors again… it’s going to be dramatic, we are going to notice the difference”.
According to this teacher, “after [they] arrived in Canada… [they realized] people are not alert enough about what China is doing… most of the world may see China as a changed one… that’s not the case… whatever kind of gesture they’re making, they don’t care about it… what we value here in Canada, they don’t value”. They “feel that [CBC is] acting really naïve… and they want to approach China in a… friendly way as if they are approaching the French government”.
"This journalists in China are facing real... danger"
-FHS teacher
As you can see, this recent closure of the CBC office in China will lead to less freedom of speech and only perpetuate the struggles of the Chinese population. We must educate ourselves on this situation, for perhaps it runs deeper than expected and will not only impact the Chinese residents.
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