BBC World News Has Been Banned in China

BBC World News has been banned from broadcasting in mainland China for “serious content violations,” the country’s state media company announced on Thursday. 

The move to ban the BBC comes exactly one week after the UK’s principal communications regulator, Ofcom, withdrew the broadcasting license of China’s international English-language satellite news channel, China Global Television Network (CGTN).

“As the channel fails to meet the requirements to broadcast in China as an overseas channel, BBC World News is not allowed to continue its service within Chinese territory,” China’s National Radio and Television Administration wrote in a statement. “The NRTA will not accept the channel's broadcast application for the new year."

Last week, Ofcom ruled that CGTN’s parent company, Star China Media Limited, had breached UK law by not having sufficient editorial oversight of its channel. Ofcom subsequently blocked a move to transfer the licence to a new entity after the regulator determined the company was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. UK law does not allow political bodies to hold broadcast licenses.

“We have given CGTN significant time to come into compliance with the statutory rules. Those efforts have now been exhausted,” Ofcom said in a statement.

“Following careful consideration, taking account of all the facts and the broadcaster’s and audience’s rights to freedom of expression, we have decided it is appropriate to revoke the licence for CGTN to broadcast in the UK.”

It’s unclear whether China’s decision to pull the BBC from its airwaves was an act of retaliation. The Chinese government has expressed frustration in the past at some of the BBC’s reporting on the government’s initial handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as multiple reports on the treatment of Uighur Muslims in the north-western region of Xinjiang.