CBC shutting down its China news bureauMove comes after visa request was met by months-long silence from Chinese officialsCBC News is shutting down its Beijing news bureau after a more-than-40-year presence in China, saying it was forced to take the step after officials have ignored repeated requests for a journalist work visa."There is no point keeping an empty bureau when we could easily set up elsewhere in a different country that welcomes journalists and respects journalistic scrutiny," said CBC News editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon, announcing the move in a blog posted Wednesday.The decision follows numerous exchanges and requests for meetings with the Chinese Consulate in Montreal since October 2020 to procure a visa for Philippe Leblanc, a journalist with Radio-Canada, CBC's French-language counterpart.The CBC's last Beijing correspondent, Saša Petricic, returned to Canada after China locked down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.The expulsion of CBC's journalists from Russia came after a 44-year presence in Moscow and is believed to be the first time in the broadcaster's history that a government forced the closure of one of its bureaus."