April 30, 2002

The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English-language newspaper and a respected source of news on China, said yesterday it had dismissed its senior China correspondent, Jasper Becker.

Becker's employment had been terminated with immediate effect "because of his refusal to work under, and report to, the China editor", said the paper's spokeswoman, Swee Lynn Chong.

The dismissal comes amid growing concerns in Hong Kong about restrictions on media freedom since the former colony's reversion to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Becker, based in Beijing for the newspaper since 1995 and author of Hungry Ghosts, a book about China's 1950s famine, said he had perceived a growing reluctance by the Post to tackle sensitive issues in its coverage of China.

He cited recent demonstrations by unemployed workers in northern China that he was not permitted to cover; a cautious approach to coverage of the pseudo-religious Falun Gong movement, which the Chinese Government has banned as [Jiang Zemin regime's slanderous term omitted]; and the decision last month by the paper's editor not to allow him to travel to Tibet, despite receiving rare approval from regional authorities.

"They have been gradually making it impossible for me to carry out my reporting duties, withholding money from the bureau and refusing to authorise reporting outside Beijing," Becker said.

"I had aired my concerns about this, and I believe my dismissal is in response to the concerns I raised about the China editor and the way the paper's China coverage was being perceived," he said.

Becker is the second journalist specialising in China coverage to leave the paper under a cloud in recent years. In late 2000, Willy Wo Lap Lam, formerly the paper's China editor, left the Post after being removed from his position. He was replaced by Wang Xiangwei, a Chinese national formerly employed by the Government-controlled China Daily and the now-defunct Hong Kong Eastern Express.