Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Aug 08, 2025

US Secretary of State calls China the biggest threat to journalists worldwide, as if USA did not jail Julian Assange for doing best journalism ever

US Secretary of State calls China the biggest threat to journalists worldwide, as if USA did not jail Julian Assange for doing best journalism ever

Antony Blinken condemns Beijing for detaining journalists and using technology to ‘increase surveillance, harassment, censorship’ both at home and abroad.

Washington’s top diplomat used the occasion of World Press Freedom Day to knock the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong governments for media restrictions and alleged harassment of journalists and dissidents worldwide.

Citing data compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based non-profit advocacy group, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China the biggest threat to press freedom in terms of the number of journalists under detention because of their work.

“We’ve been deeply concerned about what we’re seeing from the PRC in terms of its misuse of its technology to try to do things like increase surveillance, harassment, intimidation, censorship of PRC citizens, of journalists, of activists and others, and that includes abroad,” he said, using the acronym for People’s Republic of China.

Chinese government officials, Blinken said, “are using the free and open media – that we ensure that are protected in democratic systems – to spread propaganda, to spread disinformation.

“It also appears that they are further using these systems to stalk, harass, to threaten critics who are outside the PRC’s territory,” he added.

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993 following a recommendation by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), of which China is a member. Hong Kong has separate representation at Unesco.

China’s embassy in Washington rejected Blinken’s criticism as “an attempt to pressure China with unfounded allegations”, which “exposes the US side’s hegemony, bullying and double standard on media and press freedom”.

“The Chinese government protects the rights and interests of journalists and citizens’ freedom of speech in accordance with the law, and gives full play to the supervisory role of the media and citizens,” Liu Pengyu, the embassy’s spokesman, said in response to a request for comment.

Blinken’s remarks come several weeks after United States prosecutors unveiled charges against a Chinese national over an alleged scheme backed by Beijing to pressure a former pro-democracy protester out of running for Congress.

The lawsuit accused Chinese national Qiming Lin of plotting to fabricate derogatory information about the targeted victim, whose description closely matched Xiong Yan, a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 who later joined the US military as a chaplain and is now running for a US congressional seat in New York.

This file photo taken on June 24, 2021 shows an Apple Daily journalist holding freshly-printed copies of the newspaper’s last edition to be distributed to supporters gathered outside their office in Hong Kong, as the tabloid was forced to close after 26 years.


The case against Lin was one of three indictments announced by the US Department of Justice, which also brought charges against a former pro-democracy campaigner in the US, who allegedly worked with Beijing’s Ministry of State Security.

Blinken did not name any Hong Kong or mainland Chinese journalists, saying only that the detained individuals identified by CPJ include eight from Hong Kong.

The CPJ database includes former senior employees of the now-closed Apple Daily, who were charged last year under Hong Kong’s national security law. It also includes Cheng Lei, an Australian journalist who worked as a television anchor for Chinese state media for a decade before being detained in 2020.

Blinken spent much of his address on Russia’s war against Ukraine and journalists killed or injured in the conflict, including Vera Hyrych, a correspondent with the US government funded Radio Liberty, who died when a missile hit her apartment building along with other air strikes on Kyiv last week.

Russia’s defense ministry said the next day that it had carried out airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital, during a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, with “high-precision” weapons .

Blinken called the Kremlin’s refusal to call its invasion of Ukraine a war evidence that Moscow lacks confidence in its cause.

“The mere fact of calling what is happening in Ukraine by its name – a brutal, unprovoked aggression, as opposed to the Orwellian special military operation – that risks getting anyone who does that 15 years in jail,” Blinken said, referring to rules that the Kremlin promulgated after invading its neighbour.

“Again, among many other things, [this is] not evidence of a government or leadership that actually has confidence in itself,” he added.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Germany’s Economic Breakdown and the Return of Militarization: From Industrial Collapse to a New Offensive Strategy
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
Kurdistan Workers Party Takes Symbolic Step Towards Peace in Northern Iraq
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Russia Formally Recognizes Taliban Government in Afghanistan
Mediators Edge Closer to Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Agreement
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
Meta Announces Formation of Ambitious AI Unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs
China Unveils Miniature Insect-Like Surveillance Drone
Marc Marquez Claims Victory at Dutch Grand Prix Amidst Family Misfortune
Iran Executes Alleged Israeli Spies and Arrests Hundreds Amid Post-War Crackdown
Trump Asserts Readiness for Further Strikes on Iran Amid Nuclear Tensions
Iran's Parliament Votes to Suspend Cooperation with Nuclear Watchdog
Trump Announces Upcoming US-Iran Meeting Amid Controversial Airstrikes
Trump Moves to Reshape Middle East Following Israel-Iran Conflict
NATO Leaders Endorse Plan for Increased Defence Spending
U.S. Crude Oil Prices Drop Below $65 Amid Market Volatility
Explosions Rock Doha as Iranian Missiles Target Qatar
“You Have 12 Hours to Flee”: Israeli Threat Campaign Targets Surviving Iranian Officials
Oman Set to Introduce Personal Income Tax, First in Gulf
Germany and Italy Under Pressure to Repatriate $245bn of Gold from US Vaults
×