LONDON—As pro-democracy demonstrations engulfed Hong Kong in August, Reuters broke a sensitive story: Beijing had rejected a secret proposal by city leader Carrie Lam to meet several of the protesters’ demands in a bid to defuse the unrest.
The story buttressed a main claim of the protesters, that Beijing is intervening deeply in the affairs of the Chinese-ruled city. A state-run newspaper denounced the story as “fake” and “shameful.” The article soon became unavailable in mainland China.
