DHARAMSHALA: Foreign correspondents working in China said reporting conditions have worsened over the past year, according to a new survey by Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China which finds the Chinese government has increasingly resorted to threats and intimidation against foreign media.

The survey, carried out in May 2013, found that 98 percent of respondents do not think reporting conditions in China meet international standards, and 70 percent feel conditions have worsened or stayed the same as the year before. Only three respondents say they think things are getting better.(View survey)

One of foreign correspondents’ greatest concerns is the continuing restrictions on journalists’ movements in Tibetan-inhabited areas of China. “Restrictions on foreign journalists’ access to “sensitive” areas of the country remain widespread, arbitrary and unexplained. Reporters have been told by officials in Qinghai that all Tibetan-inhabited areas of China are off-limits to the foreign press. Though such a blanket ban is not always applied, local officials have repeatedly interfered with reporting work,” the survey said.

The journalists also complained of government retaliation against foreign media that have incurred official displeasure; threats to the physical safety of reporters whose reports have offended the authorities; increased cyber harassment and hacking attacks on foreign journalists; official harassment of sources and official intimidation of reporters’ Chinese assistants.

“Attacks on journalists, those working with them and their sources have replaced detention by uniformed police,” said a US radio correspondent.

“It has now become normal that uniformed police stand with arms folded as plainclothes ‘thugs’ appear. The thugs are often violent. I have received many bruises during these incidents,” the survey quoted a British TV correspondent as saying.