China has used extra surveillance and restrictions ostensibly imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic

China has used extra surveillance and restrictions ostensibly imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic to block the work of foreign reporters already struggling with threats of detention and punitive visa restrictions, a press group said Monday.

As the country has largely brought the coronavirus outbreak under control since it emerged in late 2019, Beijing has raced to promote an official narrative of heroism and success in its early handling of the pandemic.

“As China’s propaganda machine struggled to regain control of the narrative around this public health disaster, foreign press outlets were repeatedly obstructed in their attempts to cover the pandemic,” the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said in its annual report, based on a survey of 150 of its 220 members.