Reforms prove media accusations wrong

No matter how powerful a censorship infrastructure a country has, it cannot filter all the information circulating in the real and virtual worlds today. But when it comes to China, the West has been promoting a perception to the contrary.

At the recent celebration to mark the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the World Press Freedom Day, a handful of Western journalists once again alleged that there was a low degree of press freedom in China, the authorities often tried to prevent foreign journalists from doing their "job", and urged the Chinese government to respect and protect their freedom to interview anybody they wanted to.

A report by Reporters Without Borders, published in the World Press Freedom Index for 2014 in February, lists China as one of the worst countries in terms of press freedom, ranking it 175th among 180 countries. Prone to looking at the world through tinted glasses, the RWB has been publishing such press freedom ratings every year since 2002. And needless to say, ulterior motives and lack of the reality on the ground have prompted it to always keep China at the bottom-end of the list.