"Al Jazeera TV must have a presence in China," said Ezzat Shahrour, chief correspondent of the Arabic news satellite channel's Beijing branch, during a visit by a Chinese reporter.

"As an Arabic national TV station from the Middle East, we hold great responsibilities to introduce a genuine and objective China to Arabic audiences through the eye of us Arabic people," he said.

"In the past, the Arabic media relied heavily on reports by Western media when covering things in China, but now we can look at China in a different way."

Al Jazeera TV was established in Doha in February 1996, the capital of Qatar. As one of the largest Arabic news networks in the Arabic World, Al Jazeera TV is also one of the most popular channels in the world, with branches in more than 30 foreign countries.

Ever since the opening of the Beijing Branch in July 2002, Ezzat Shahrour and his colleagues have been very busy working on stories about such different fields as 16th Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, Six-Party Talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Beijing Opera and major overhauls of the Imperial Palace in downtown Beijing.

Their strenuous efforts have paid off. Al Jazeera TV's reports about China have won applause from Arabic audiences.

In June 2005, Qu Jun, director of the Department of West Asian and North African Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, became the first Chinese official interviewed by the Arabic satellite news channel in a program televised live. Hundreds of phone calls and emails flooded the Beijing Branch afterwards to convey congratulations for its success.

The Beijing Branch sends back China news to its headquarters almost daily as China gains an increasingly higher share in its international reports. "We plan to report more and better about China and expand the Beijing Branch," said Ezzat Shahrour.

Currently, the branch is recruiting a sports reporter to prepare for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, he said.

In the first half of next year, Al Jazeera TV is expected to open a special weekly report about China to cover political, economic and cultural sectors as well as the life of the ordinary Chinese people. "In addition, we are going to add a Chinese Language page on our website," he said.

In May 2005, Al Jazeera TV signed an agreement of cooperation with China Central Television (CCTV). Moreover, it also plans to forge cooperative ties with Xinhua News Agency and China Radio International (CRI).

"One of our main jobs in the current period is to strengthen cooperation with Chinese media," Ezzat Shahrour said. "This kind of cooperation is expected to make our China reports more varied and more vivid. And there will be a bright future for business cooperation and exchanges between Chinese and Arabic media."

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2005)