Foreign journalists in China report state backing for rising intimidation during Henan floods
- Years of encouragement for nationalistic sentiment is behind the intense hostility faced by reporters, observers say
- Previous campaigns against Western news outlets were confined largely to the internet but this time there was anger on the streets
In one of the worst reported cases, two journalists were surrounded by an “angry mob” in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on Saturday as they reported on the floods, according to Mathias Boelinger, from German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. He shared video footage of the incident which showed a man grabbing him and trying to take away his filming equipment.
“They kept pushing me, yelling that I was a bad guy, and that I should stop smearing China,” Boelinger said, in a series of tweets he posted on Sunday.
Boelinger, who believes he was mistaken for the BBC’s China correspondent Robin Brant, was with Alice Su, Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, who was also reporting on the floods when the incident happened. She has also been targeted online.
Liu Ludong, an outspoken nationalist with more than 6.5 million followers on microblogging platform Weibo, called for Su’s deportation and asked Peking University – where she completed a degree – to “strengthen the inspection of international students’ political background and cultivate fewer enemy collaborators like Su.”
