Officials are more accessible now

The Chinese media have made phenomenal progress over the years, a senior South Korean journalist has said.

"The change is all the more striking when compared with what it was like two decades ago," said Choi Nam-hyun, editor-in-chief of Korea Herald, South Korea's largest English-language newspaper.

It is "much easier to conduct interviews in China than before, with no restrictions imposed on travel now," he said in an e-mail interview with China Daily.