China has announced that Olympics-related reporting rules for foreign journalists were to be extended, although they still do not apply to Chinese journalists.

Introduced on 1 January 2008 as part of China’s Olympic commitments towards more freedom for foreign journalists, these rules mean that reporters only need consent from the interviewee as opposed to government authorisation. The rules theoretically allow foreign journalists to travel where they please. However, in practice, sensitive areas such as Tibet are still off limits without official permission.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, confirmed that the rules did not apply to domestic journalists and that Chinese nationals were still prevented from working as journalists with foreign media organisations: “We have to say that the conditions are not mature for Chinese citizens to become journalists alongside foreign journalists,” he said.

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of China welcomed the move and said that if properly implemented, this would “mark a step forward in the opening of China’s media environment.”

Implementation, that’s the key. Since 1 January of this year, the Foreign Correspondent’s Club has recorded more than 335 cases of government interference with journalists’ work - harassment, intimidation, detention, for example. Interference by local officials who were either unaware of the rules or chose to ignore them.

For David Bandurski, a researcher for the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong, this move is really about China’s international image: “China has decided that the international benefits they are going to get in terms of their image of openness are sufficient to outweigh any negative coverage they might get.”