The most consequential part of ThePrint’s recent report about China and the forthcoming BRICS summit may not be about Falun Gong at all.
It may be about Indian journalism.
According to the publication, senior Chinese Embassy officials in New Delhi raised concerns about access being granted to news organisations associated with Falun Gong and Tibet, including the possibility that those journalists could question the Chinese delegation attending the summit. ThePrint
That immediately creates a question that transcends the groups involved:
Who determines which journalists are allowed to question a visiting foreign government in India?
India, as host, naturally has to manage security, accreditation and diplomatic protocol. Visiting governments also routinely communicate concerns to host countries. Neither of those facts is unusual.
What matters is the boundary.
If access is restricted because an organisation fails ordinary accreditation or security requirements, that is one matter.
If access is restricted because a foreign government objects to the political or religious identity of a journalist or organisation, that is another.
At present, there is no publicly established evidence that India has accepted the reported Chinese request. Any responsible account must preserve that distinction.
But the question is worth asking because overseas pressure on critics of the Chinese Communist Party has been documented internationally.
Freedom House describes China as operating the world’s most extensive campaign of transnational repression. Its research identifies Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, Uyghurs, dissidents, journalists and human-rights defenders among the groups affected. The organisation argues that transnational repression does not merely harm targeted individuals; it also implicates the sovereignty of the host states in which the pressure occurs. Freedom House
The historical record offers a warning about how seemingly narrow arrangements can become larger constitutional questions.
In 2002, when Chinese leader Jiang Zemin visited Iceland, that country restricted the entry of Falun Gong practitioners. Years later, Iceland’s parliament debated the episode, and parliamentary records state that a list distributed by Icelandic authorities to identify suspected practitioners was subsequently found by the country’s Data Protection Authority to have been handled unlawfully. Icelandic Parliament
That does not mean India is “becoming Iceland.” Such comparisons are too easy and usually too imprecise.
But Iceland demonstrates why democracies need clarity at the moment a foreign government asks for accommodation involving speech or political expression.
In the United States, the question has moved further still.
Federal prosecutors successfully pursued John Chen and Lin Feng for acting as illegal PRC agents in a scheme targeting a Falun Gong-run entity. DOJ said the operation was directed and funded by the Chinese government. U.S. DOJ
Again, that case does not establish that an embassy request concerning BRICS accreditation is comparable to a clandestine criminal operation.
It establishes something narrower but important: Chinese government efforts against Falun Gong have, in at least some jurisdictions, extended beyond diplomatic objection into state-directed activity on foreign soil.
Indian journalists therefore have every reason to ask Beijing directly:
Did the Chinese Embassy ask India to restrict accreditation or access for particular organisations?
Which organisations?
What security or diplomatic concern does Beijing believe they present?
Does China believe media organisations that are blocked or opposed inside China should also face restrictions when Chinese leaders travel abroad?
And what, if anything, has the Indian government agreed to?
Those questions need not begin with sympathy for Falun Gong, Tibet or any other group.
They begin with a much simpler democratic principle.
A journalist operating lawfully in India is subject to Indian law.
The government deciding the boundaries of Indian journalism should be India’s.