of regulations, many of them unwritten. A 2017 report by the Foreign Correspondents’

93 of regulations, many of them unwritten. A 2017 report by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China notes that in a survey of 117 foreign journalists based in China, 40 percent felt reporting conditions had deteriorated compared to 2016, nearly half said they had experienced harassment, interference, and physical violence during their work in China, while 15 percent said they encountered difficulties during their visa renewal process and over 25 percent said they had learned that Chinese contacts had been detained and otherwise hounded by Chinese authorities for speaking with them.” China has also moved against Western media outlets on many fronts. Both Chinese- and English-language websites of the New York Times have been blocked in China since 2012 following a story detailing the wealth of the family of China’s then premier Wen Jiabao.** The English- and Chinese-language sites of the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are also blocked, and those belonging to the Financial Times and the Economist are blocked on an intermittent basis. The Chinese government has also made it difficult for resident foreign reporters to obtain and renew journalist visas. Following the New York Times’ report on Wen’s family money, China did not approve a new journalist visa for a Times reporter for three years. While the situation has improved somewhat since 2015 for resident journalists, the Chinese government still delays visa applications for journalists and uses the threat of expulsion from China as a way to pressure Western media outlets to soften their coverage of China. This is especially true of freelance journalists or independent documentary filmmakers who are dependent on onetime visas to carry out a specific assignment. Here delays and outright refusal to process visas in a timely manner have been common. There is some indication that China’s pressure tactics have paid off. In 2013, Bloomberg News was preparing to publish a report detailing connections between one of China’s richest men and members of the Politburo—the top organ in the Chinese Communist Party, when Bloomberg spiked the story. The outlet’s editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, was quoted on a conference call likening the decision to censorship of foreign news bureaus that wanted to continue to report in Nazi Germany.** Other observers noted that the real reason Bloomberg News killed the story involved the company’s substantial business interests—especially in “Bloomberg Boxes” selling access to financial information—in China. Indeed, the organization’s founder recently doubled down on China and now even headlines a new forum focusing on China’s global influence with a state-owned Chinese partner.* (Interestingly, the Section 6 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020552