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India sends back 3 Chinese journalists by July 31 for 'activities beyond official work'

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 24, Jul 2016, 12:05 pm IST | UPDATED: 25, Jul 2016, 7:39 am IST

India sends back 3 Chinese journalists by July 31 for 'activities beyond official work' New Delhi: Three Chinese journalists representing the state-run Xinhua news agency have been denied permission to stay on in India.

According to sources, the three journalists - Delhi-based Bureau Chief Wu Qiang and two reporters in Mumbai Tang Lu and Ma Qiang - were being watched by security agencies for several months now for "activities beyond their official work".

Their visas had expired in January and since then they were being extended regularly. They will have to return by July 31.

Sources say China is free to send other journalists to India in their place and insist the decision is not linked to China's opposition to India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG.

Lu Tang is a graduate of Jawaharlal Nehru University and a journalist well known to scholars and researchers working on India-China relations.

Sources denied that the three Chinese journalists are being “expelled”, asserting that their visa validity had already expired and they were staying here on borrowed time.

Indian government sources also dismissed the suggestion that this move had anything to do with recent sharp differences with Beijing over New Delhi’s quest for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It was pointed out that the long-term visas of the Chinese nationals had run out about four months ago – much before the NSG plenary meeting in Seoul in June.

Sources said that the move to refuse renewal of their India visa was decided after all three came “to the adverse attention of security agencies”.According to The Hindu, the Xinhua Delhi bureau chief Wu Xiang said that no reason was given for the denial of their visas.

These journalists had since then been on short extension of 15 days to two months, added sources. “We were giving them these short extensions as they wanted to stay on till their successor was there. But, since their successor were not here even after months, we gave them a cut-off date,” he said. The Chinese journalists have already got four extensions previously, it was added.

Government sources added that India was not ‘expelling’ the journalists, as Xinhua was not being asked to pack up. “Xinhua is welcome to post new correspondents in Delhi,” he said.

Besides Xinhua, journalists of five more Chinese media organisations are based in India. There are five Indian journalists reporting from China.

‘Needless aggravation’

Mohan Guruswamy, chairman of the Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch-up with China?, was scathing in his observations about the latest development in a Facebook post.

“Lu Tang, whom many of you FB users might recognise and who has done so much to provide China’s opinion makers with a better understanding of India is among the three Chinese journalists not to get their work visas extended,” he wrote on the Chinese correspondent’s Facebook wall. “We can now expect some tit for tat for no rhyme or reason. If Indian scribes are turned out off China we too will lose our eyes and ears in that country. Not extending visas of journalists is a needless aggravation. I am sure the [Ministry of External Affairs] would be clueless about this as this is now under the exclusive purview of the largely clueless Ministry of Home Affairs.”

Ranjit Kalha, a former secretary in the MEA said on Facebook that the move seems to have been “done without thinking through [the] outcome.”

The decision is likely to strain the already tense ties between the two countries.

China's blocking of India's bid has been read by analysts as Beijing's determination to curtail the influence of India and demonstrate its power to the US, which has volubly pushed India's cause.