India gives marching orders to three Chinese scribes to leave country by July 31 - Know why

New Delhi: India has expelled three Chinese journalists who were working for the state-run Xinhua news agency by refusing to renew their visas to work in the country, a media report said on Saturday.

The scribes have been asked to leave the country by July 31, the Hindustan Times reported.

Journalists Wu Qiang and Lu Tang head Xinhua’s bureau in New Delhi and Mumbai respectively. The third, She Yonggang, is a reporter based in Mumbai.

The latest action by India that could worsen the already strained relations between the two countries.

The report said that the Indian government gave no reason for refusing to renew their visas.

Their visas had expired earlier this year.

On July 14, they were informed that they had to leave India by July 31.

Wu has been working in India for past seven years while the other two were posted in Mumbai last year, the report said.

Ties between the two nations have been strained after Beijing refused to back India’s bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) last month in Seoul.

Non-renewal of visas is a common practice followed by governments to expel foreign journalists whose writing is seen as critical of official policy, the HT report said.

In December last year, China had reportedly expelled a French journalist for writing a piece questioning the government’s handling of the situation in the restive Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The mode of expulsion was similar.

Currently, five Indian journalists work out of Beijing. Also, a number of Indians work for China’s English state media like China Central Television, China Daily and China Radio International, the report said.