The professional membership of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand is very concerned by reports that a Chinese journalist, Bai Zhaodong, has been detained by the Thai authorities for several months, and may be extradited to China.
Bai Zhaodong was a prominent investigative reporter who focused on exposing official corruption, most recently for Caijing magazine in Beijing. According to Reporters Sans Frontieres he left China in November 2023.
An arrest warrant was issued by the Chinese authorities on a charge of extortion in September 2024, and China has now requested his extradition by Thailand. Human rights groups believe the charges against him are politically-motivated, and that he faces arbitrary detention and possible torture if he is forcibly returned to China.
Friends of Bai Zhaodong say he disappeared last November, and that in the one video call they have had with him since then, he appeared to be in detention, had lost weight and looked stressed. RSF says it has been informed that he is being detained at the Immigration Detention Centre in Suan Phlu, Bangkok.
The FCCT asks the Thai authorities to disclose the conditions in which Bai Zhaodong is being kept, and not to extradite him to China while there are legitimate concerns over how he will be treated.
China ranks near the bottom of most global media freedom indexes, and routinely imprisons journalists on questionable charges.
17 July 2026
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