Discreet Signal

Norway's journalist invoked the 'freest press in the world' at PM Modi in Oslo. Before Oslo lectures New Delhi on accountability, take a look at their own record. -In 2016, Norway signed a normalization pact with China that included a formal government pledge that it "attaches high importance to China's core interests and major concerns" and "will not support actions that undermine them." Norway's youth parties called it what it was — a formal renunciation of the right to criticize Chinese authorities. This was the price of resumed trade talks with Beijing after a 6-year pause. What triggered that 6-year freeze? Norway's Nobel Committee gave the Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010. So China punished Oslo diplomatically and economically — stopped buying Norwegian salmon. And Oslo eventually capitulated. -In 2018, Norway's King and Queen visited China and claimed they were unaware of Xinjiang's internment camps — in 2018, when international documentation of mass detention was extensive. So you see, all this talk of 'human rights', 'press freedom' and other such fancy phrases are hollow and hypocritical. -Norway's own Helsinki Committee urged its government in 2022 to increase pressure on China over Xinjiang. The government did not comply. -In September 2024, PM Støre flew to Beijing, met Xi Jinping, and returned with 15-day visa-free access for Norwegian citizens. The official Chinese readout quoted Støre saying China's "development is full of vitality and has significant successful experience." Norway pledged again to respect China's "core interests." Human rights got a one-line mention vague enough to mean nothing. -Aftenposten — Norway's newspaper of record — has itself acknowledged that every time it published something critical of Beijing or positive about Taiwan, its website was blocked in China for two weeks. Did this issue ever get raised diplomatically? A journalist from a country whose government formally pledged not to challenge Beijing's core interests, whose royal family pleaded 'ignorance' about Xinjiang in 2018, whose PM flew to Beijing and praised Xi's 'vitality' in 2024, and whose flagship newspaper self-censored under Chinese pressure — invoking press freedom as a unilateral moral standard against a democratically elected leader of 1.4 billion people — is HYPOCRISY 101. Press freedom is a principle. Oslo needs to prove it actually deserves it's number 1 ranking before lecturing others.