No Country For Facts: Chinese Government Warns Against Reporting Negative Economic News

The Xi Jinping led Chinese government has issued a directive to journalists in China to manage headlines and censor content on six identified economic topics, The New York Times (NYT) has reported.

According to the order, a copy of which was reviewed by NYT, the Chinese government wants to control the negative news about its economy falling under the following areas:

1. Worse-Than-Expected data that could show the economy is slowing.
2. Local government debt risks.
3. The impact of the trade war with the United States.
4. Signs of declining consumer confidence.
5. The risks of stagflation, or rising prices coupled with slowing economic growth.
6. Hot-Button issues to show the difficulties of people’s lives.

The Chinese government’s new directive betrays an increasing sense of unease among the Chinese vanguard on the country’s economic trajectory. Industrial profit growth has slowed for four consecutive months, and China’s stock market is near its lowest level in four years.

Censors have also erased online commentary which contained the phrases like “consumption downgrade, taxes, debt and unemployment”, as per Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong, which monitors censorship on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media service.

According to the NYT, another notice was also issued on Friday (29 September) instructing online news publications to purge comments at the bottom of news articles that “bad-mouth” the Chinese economy.