Tokyo: Wang Zhian, a former reporter of a Chinese state-run broadcaster, has been reporting “inconvenient truths” about China after moving to Japan to escape from suppression of speech and press control.

Wang, 54, had worked as a reporter and news commentator at China Central Television for nearly 20 years.

He left China after his social media account suddenly got frozen on June 3, 2019, the day before the 30th anniversary of the so-called Tiananmen Square incident. He realized that he was marked by local authorities and started to worry about his safety.

Later, he relocated to Japan with his family because of the fear that he may no longer be able to work as a journalist in China, Wang said in an interview with Jiji Press.

In May this year, Wang started sharing videos on YouTube in which he talks about current topics.

He said he disseminates through his YouTube channel information that Chinese people want to know but he would not be able to share if he had belonged to an organization or lived in China.

So far, he has taken up such taboos in China as the Tiananmen Square incident, the inside of the Chinese Communist Party’s congress and China’s media control.

He has also reported on the state funeral for former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held in Tokyo last month and Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine.

In China, the situation in Ukraine is hardly reported, apparently reflecting the Asian country’s cooperative ties with Russia.

There are over 400,000 subscribers to his channel. Viewers include many people from mainland China who use a virtual private network to access restricted websites there, according to Wang.

On Oct. 13, three days before the latest Chinese Communist Party congress, a banner criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping was hung from a viaduct in Beijing.

This unusual development in China drew attention in the international community.

However, Wang said that the great majority of Chinese people are not very dissatisfied with the Xi administration.

He said that the information that ordinary Chinese people have access to has been edited in favor of the administration.

If local media organizations only report that one million people have died of COVID-19 in the United States and that the Japanese government does not take responsibility for numerous COVID-19 fatalities in the country, many people would not to oppose China’s strict zero-COVID-19 policy, Wang said.

He is prepared to live outside China for the rest of his life, assuming Xi will maintain his power for a long time.

Wang voiced hope to report news that Chinese media are reluctant to or cannot cover and even to do reporting in Taiwan.

JIJI Press