On Friday, China's broadcasting regulator, the National Radio and Television Administration, announced on its official website that it had pulled BBC World News off the air in China for serious content violation. It also said that it will not accept any application from BBC for renewing its license for one year.

The regulator said BBC had violated certain basic principles of journalism and China's national interests by challenging ethnic unity in the country.

BBC, it said, was fabricating lies about China. For example, it had politicized reports about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic by circulating conspiracy theories and passed off a video showing Chinese police carrying out anti-terrorism drills in Wuhan as instances of Chinese law enforcers "violating human rights".

In reports from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, BBC cooked up stories of "systematic" abuse of women inside "re-education camps". Anybody with a conscience should ask what happened to BBC's journalistic ethics.

China has repeatedly urged BBC to make amends and apologize for its mistakes. The Chinese embassy in London even made video appointments with the BBC news editor on these issues. However, BBC denied the facts.

As stated by a Chinese netizen: "When 1.4 billion people, about 20 percent of the world's total, do not trust BBC, how can it claim to be a trustworthy media outlet? Is there arrogance or ignorance behind its claims? I think both."

Those fabricating lies often defend themselves using the garb of press freedom. However, "press freedom" does not mean the freedom to fabricate lies or bad-mouth some countries. It is common practice for countries to regulate media outlets and the NRTA has done so according to law.

BBC should think about its wrongs, give up its Cold War mentality, and stop manufacturing fake news. We take this opportunity to tell BBC that any move to badmouth China is an offense to the Chinese people.