Turning back the clock

China appears poised to turn back the blocks on its own rules regarding the press, on the brink of ditching widely trumpeted regulations on foreign journalists that it implemented before the 2008 Olympics.

Officials have blamed foreign journalists for breaking the rules while attempting to cover protests that never materialized in Beijing over the weekend. A Bloomberg journalist was beaten on city’s big shopping street, while others were roughed up and more turned away.Now, police are summoning the capital's foreign press corp to inform them of a new era.

The current rules, brought in before the Olympics to help the country win its bid for the Games, state that to conduct interviews or report in China, journalists need only obtain permission of the interviewee. Now, it seems police are taking a hardline interpretation, turning back the rulebook to several years ago when foreign correspondents were required to have prior consent before traveling anywhere in China. The move could be a blow to the flow of information in China, tightening censorship controls on what foreign journalists can access.