The Chinese government accused a German reporter of "negatively influencing German public opinion about China" and Tuesday ordered him to leave the country.
The Chinese government refused to renew press credentials for Henrik Bork, Beijing bureau chief for the Frankfurter Rundschau. His card expires Dec. 28, and without a new one he cannot get a visa to continue working in China.Foreign journalists must apply annually to renew their press card.
It was the first time the government has expelled a foreign reporter this way. Previous expul-sions have been more straight-for-ward.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian denied that Bork was being expelled.
"There is no such thing as an expulsion," Chen said. He refused to answer questions about why Bork had been denied credentials.
But German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, who tried to convince China to overturn the decision, said Bork was being expelled "for his critical reporting."
Bork is the seventh Beijing-based foreign correspondent ordered out of the country since 1986. The last expulsion was of Andrew Higgins, of the British newspaper The Independent, in 1991. He had reported on a secret document.
The ruling Communist Party has long made clear that it considers foreign journalists enemies of socialism and agents of capitalist ideology. Reporters are routinely followed when they meet Chinese contacts and must get government approval if they want to leave the capital for reporting.
Bork, 34, has reported from China for various European publications for four years. He speaks Chinese fluently and previously studied in China.
In a written statement, Bork called the decision "an attempt by the Chinese government to intimidate all Western journalists in Beijing."
Bork said Foreign Ministry officials told him his reporting was consistently "biased and negative," that his articles had "attacked personalities of the People's Republic of China," and that he had traveled through China using a false name and concealing his status as a journalist.
"I absolutely deny" the last charge, Bork said.
The allegation of attacking Chinese personalities appeared to be a reference to a 1994 article Bork wrote about Premier Li Peng in the German newspaper.
Bork wrote that Li ducked questions about his role in the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy movement and referred to Li as a dictator.