Riyaz Khaliq Khaliq
20 August 2021•Update: 20 August 2021
ANKARA
The China Global Television Network, or CGTN, on Friday said it has resumed its broadcast in the UK, more than six months after the British broadcast regulator banned it.
“Resumption of CGTN broadcasting is in the British public interest and will enable exchanges of information, culture, mutual trust and cooperation between the Chinese and British peoples,” the Chinese public broadcaster said in a statement, adding CGTN is “carried 24 hours a day on the digital TV platform Freeview.”
In February, the British broadcast regulator Ofcom revoked the license of the CGTN.
The regulator said it had “withdrawn the license for the CGTN to broadcast in the UK after its investigation concluded that the license is wrongfully held by Star China Media Limited.”
In a tit-for-tat move, China announced banning the broadcast of the BBC World News in the country.
Some of the BBC's reports on China infringed on the "principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism," the Chinese broadcaster had said just a few days after the Ofcom had revoked the license of the CGTN.
The announcement of CGTN resuming broadcast in the UK came a day after the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab made a phone call to China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Wang told Raab there were “positive signs in the Sino-British relations.”
“You have said that cooperation rather than disagreement should be used to define bilateral relations, and China agrees,” a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry quoted Wang as telling Raab.
The CGTN said it “appreciates the cooperative attitude of the British institutions involved and is willing to make further efforts to promote understanding between China and the UK.”
