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09-05-2023
BEIJING: China’s state-run Global Times has lashed out at the South Korean embassy after it sent a letter to the tabloid criticizing its coverage of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s visit to the United States.
In an editorial on Monday headlined “This newspaper has something to say about S. Korean embassy’s ‘protest’”, the English-language tabloid bristled at a “strong protest” sent to its editors last week by Seoul’s embassy in Beijing.
The letter, sent on Friday, criticized the Global Times’s reporting of the visit as well as a number of its columns and editorials. A letter was also sent to the editor of the Huanqiu Shibao, a newspaper that is part of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily.
The embassy accused the state-run papers of “using sensational, provocative and inappropriate language” that “disparaged our president as well as the foreign policy of our government”.
“Some of the criticism levied at our president, using words so vulgar that they are barely repeatable, will make one wonder if they even come from news media at all,” the embassy added.
The Global Times, known for its nationalistic reporting, showed no contrition for the rare public rebuke from a foreign embassy.
“Such words that crossed boundaries and came with strong emotions should not come from a diplomatic institution,” the editorial said. “We cannot accept the rather brutal interference in our independent reporting.”
Yoon, a conservative politician who was elected last year, is seeking to build closer ties with the US and Japan amid heightened tensions in the region over the challenges posed by North Korea’s aggressive weapons testing, and an increasingly assertive China.
He has overseen deepening military ties with Washington and spent six days in the US in April where he was honored with a state dinner marking 70 years of the two countries’ alliance, and also addressed a joint session of US Congress.
The month before, Yoon had travelled to Tokyo, the first visit by a South Korean leader in 12 years, as he sought to overcome years of historical animosity stemming from Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
The Global Times reporting accused him of “blindly following the US” and “bowing to Japan to please Washington” claiming Seoul’s actions contributed to tensions in the region. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
