Beijing made use of COVID-19 prevention measures, intimidation and visa curbs to limit foreign media from covering mainland China last year, with some journalists being used as “pawns” to settle its diplomatic disputes with other countries, according to an annual report by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China.

No journalists told the FCCC that working conditions had improved in mainland China, the group said in the report, seen by Reuters, that recorded the response from 150 foreign journalists posted in mainland China and interviews with bureau chiefs.

Respondents assessed conditions as resulting in the “rapid decline in media freedom,” the third year in a row that journalists have reported such sentiment, the press group said.

“All arms of state power -— including surveillance systems introduced to curb coronavirus — were used to harass and intimidate journalists, their Chinese colleagues, and those whom the foreign press sought to interview,” Reuters cited the FCCC’s report as saying.

Mainland Chinese authorities also denied foreign journalists’ access to sensitive areas for interviews and threatened to impose enforced quarantine on them, citing public health concerns, it said.

Meanwhile, visa restrictions were also used to put pressure on reporting. According to the FCCC, at least 13 people received press credentials valid for six months or less last year. This compared to the one-year visas they will receive normally.

Journalists reporting from the far-western region of Xinjiang, where China has been accused of large-scale human rights abuses against the Uyghur people there, encountered especially serious harassment, the report said.

In retaliation for Washington’s move to reduce the number of journalists able to work in the United States at four major state-owned media outlets, Beijing ejected at least 12 reporters who worked at American media organizations last year.

Australia also helped two foreign correspondents to leave China last September after they were interrogated by China’s Ministry of State Security.

Chinese authorities also incarcerated Cheng Lei, a Chinese-born Australian television news anchor working for the Chinese state channel CGTN, and later Haze Fan, a Chinese national working for the American financial news agency Bloomberg. Both of them were arrested on suspicion of endangering national security and remain in detention.

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