BBC owes China apology for fake news, Zhao says

The BBC owes Chinese people a sincere apology for concocting and spreading large amounts of China-related fake news, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Monday.

"It neither reminds nor criticizes journalists' behavior that are in breach of work ethics, and even covers up and condones them," he said, adding the BBC completely does not distinguish right from wrong and is unprincipled.

His remarks at a daily news briefing were in response to the BBC's deceitfully obtained interview with the late Princess of Wales, Diana.

An independent inquiry by Lord Dyson, a former senior judge, found BBC journalist Martin Bashir of Panorama Interview acted in a "deceitful" way to obtain the interview with Diana, which was in violation of editorial guidelines. Bashir was also accused of lying to get the interview.

The report slammed the BBC for falling short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark. Instead, it attempted to suppress the whistleblower on the story.

The spokesman said he heeded relevant reports and statements from former chairman Michael Grade when the latter thought BBC's cover-up had been worse than its deceitful interview and that there was a lot of unknown filth in BBC's news archives.

He noted that many people think that if this is the way to deal with the royal family, then its reports bearing on geopolitics and ideology would be only uglier and more hypocritical.

In fact, the media that claims to be independent and credible continues to exploit plots, such as lying and cheating, and the situation has even turned out to be worse, the spokesman said.

"We noticed that UK's Foreign Office every year funds the BBC world service and this year alone, it appropriates 8 million pounds ($11.3 million) to challenge so-called disinformation around the world," he said.

"We hope this money can be used to where it needs most and remove BBC's lies and disinformation," he added.