As President Donald Trump toured Asia in late October, an Epoch Times reporter traveling with the White House encountered repeated roadblocks in accessing key press events, which fit an ongoing pattern of interference by communist authorities in Beijing.
Along with its sister media NTD, The Epoch Times was ultimately denied access to two key press events in which world leaders gathered late October, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits.
Both summits revealed the regional power of Beijing, which signed trade pacts and pressed for stronger trade ties with nations already heavily tethered to China economically.
Before arriving in Asia, The Epoch Times staff members had received pre-approved press credentials to the summits, along with other media outlets.
However it was the only pre-approved organization to be later denied access by the ASEAN summit organizers, after a series of twists and turns involving communications discrepancies, unlikely tech glitches, failed promises of press credentials, sudden reversal of statements, and passing the buck.
The incidents mirror a litany of similar press access denials, of which several cases had clear links to Beijing.
“The Chinese Communist Party is an enemy to freedom of the press,” The Epoch Times’ editor-in-chief Jasper Fakkert said in a statement. “It is deeply concerning that the regime is able to exert influence over international groups such as the United Nations and ASEAN to target America’s 4th largest newspaper.”
‘Enemy to Freedom of the Press’
The Epoch Times is headquartered in New York with a subscription base of well over 1 million.
Since its founding, the publication has been persistently targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, with tactics ranging from overt threats and Chinese delegates physically blocking access to behind-the-scenes influence and pressure on local authorities.
In 2000, the regime arrested the Epoch Times’s first reporters and contributors in China, sentencing several to 10 years in prison. In the early years, Chinese state agents threatened Epoch Times’ advertisers, while Chinese diplomats actively tried to interfere with the publication’s newsgathering. Officials from the United Nations, which barred Epoch Times access most recently in September, in 2003 and 2004 acknowledged receiving pressure from China about the publication’s media access.
The intimidation campaign has continued over the years; the regime at times has directed hackers to attack The Epoch Times’ website and infiltrate email accounts of top Epoch Times executives.
The CCP’s campaign against The Epoch Times appears to have escalated recently. Chinese cyberattackers have impersonated Epoch Times employees to threaten U.S. federal and civil organizations. The Epoch Times received an emailed bomb threat at its headquarters on the anniversary of its founding. In early October, the publication received an envelope with Chinese postal markings. Inside was a ziploc bag containing white power and a copy of the newspaper.
Responding at the time to those incidents, Aleksandra Bielakowska, Asia-Pacific advocacy manager for Reporters Without Borders said the watchdog is “alarmed by the growing wave of harassment targeting independent media and its own staff.”
“These tactics bear the clear hallmarks of methods used by the Chinese regime, which has intensified pressure and intimidation over the past year against outlets whose reporting deviates from the official narrative,” she told The Epoch Times after the recent intimidation and a similar press badge denial at the United Nations. “No journalist should ever be subjected to such threats. The Chinese authorities must be held accountable for this ongoing campaign against press freedom worldwide.”
Economic Leverage, Discrepancies
China is the largest trader among APEC economies, and for 16 years, the biggest trading partner for the 11-member ASEAN bloc.
Both Malaysia and South Korea—where The Epoch Times reporters encountered problems with press access—have faced consistent pressure from Beijing to toe the Party line.
Just before Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping visited Kuala Lumpur in April, the country’s officials rounded up religious refugees who had fled persecution in China, releasing them only after Xi departed.
In South Korea, NTD got a rare admission from the Chinese Embassy that the latter directly told Korean officials to block performances of a U.S. performing arts group that has put China’s human rights abuses in the global spotlight.
Similar pressures appear to have been brought to bear on the local summit organizers during Trump’s Asia tour.
Travis Gillmore, White House correspondent for The Epoch Times, arrived in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur two days before Trump joined the ASEAN summit to sign a flurry of deals with bloc members.
Gillmore had pre-approved media credentials.
However, when U.S. Embassy and White House staff went to retrieve the credentials for U.S. media personnel, ASEAN officials informed them that Gillmore’s profile needed updating.
Gillmore didn’t receive any clarification on what information was missing. And his previously provided QR code—a temporary placeholder for his credentials—mysteriously disappeared. He found no option to update his profile online. Hours of negotiation with the ASEAN media desk yielded no breakthroughs.
Repeatedly, Gillmore said he found himself in the same cycle: being told to come back and pick up the press pass later, only to find nothing when he returned.
Among other irregularities was a later-deleted WhatsApp message he received at around 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 25, telling Gillmore to pick up credentials the following day. The sender, with the name AD, deleted the message in the middle of the night. When Gillmore showed up early next morning, ASEAN staff had no pass for him, saying what happened was a “miscommunication.”
“I saw Travis and thought it was you, so I sent the message, but it must have been a different Travis,” an ASEAN staff member who identified herself as Fatika, told Gillmore.
Pressed about the litany of discrepancies, Fatika said the situation was unprecedented, without elaborating.
Gillmore asked if there was any CCP pressure influencing the decisions. The staff member replied that he should apply pressure “from the top down” to resolve the issue.
There were many other unexplained discrepancies.
On Oct. 26, the ASEAN staff told Gillmore he got a pass approval. Twice that day and the next day, they stated they were printing the documents.
But the credentials never materialized. ASEAN officials didn’t respond to Gillmore’s repeated calls and emails.
Mari Otsu and Chen Lei, White House correspondent and videographer for Epoch Times-affiliate NTD, faced a similar situation when they arrived at their hotel in South Korea’s Gyeongju ahead of the APEC summit.
Inside the hotel, a reserved media table at the press filing center bore the NTD logo.
Despite all of this, APEC staff members restricted their access and stated they didn’t have the pair’s credentials. The media liaison team blamed a “mix up” for what happened and told Otsu they had found her media pass, only to walk back the statement within minutes, saying the earlier message was “sent in error.”
Neither APEC nor ASEAN returned The Epoch Times’ request for comment for this article.
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