UK envoy summoned for 'didactic arrogance'

Caroline Elizabeth Wilson, the United Kingdom's ambassador to China, was summoned by a chief official with the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of European Affairs on Tuesday to receive a solemn protest about her recent improper signed article published on social media.

She was asked to thoroughly reflect on her duties and responsibilities, put her position in the proper place and do more things that are conducive to the development of bilateral relations, the ministry said in a statement.

In her article, Wilson said foreign media organizations, instead of targeting China only, are overseeing both their own governments and the Chinese government.

After some foreign media had been sanctioned for groundless reporting, Wilson issued the article to defend them, deliberately confused slander in news with supervision on news and she, on a selective basis, turned a blind eye to foreign suppression of Chinese media, the Chinese official said.

The article is full of didactic arrogance and ideology-related prejudice, it subverts black and white and adopts double standards, the official said.

It drifts away from the duties of diplomats and the mission of diplomatic agencies, and the article triggered great discontent among the Chinese public, the official noted.

The Chinese government and its people never oppose foreign media themselves but those erroneous moves of producing fake news and viciously attacking China, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese political system with excuses of "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech", the official said.

In another development, renowned filmmakers John Pilger, Oliver Stone and Ken Loach have signed an open letter calling for Britain to reverse a decision last month to revoke the license for Chinese broadcaster CGTN.