The BBC has "strongly condemned" the "deliberate and co-ordinated" jamming of the BBC World Service by authorities in China.
On Monday the corporation issued a statement after receiving reports that its shortwave frequencies were being blocked in China.
It follows jamming of the BBC's Persian service in Iran, and comes days after a BBC news crew was detained and their video footage confiscated while they investigated a cyber-espionage group in China.
The BBC's director of global news Peter Horrocks said: "The jamming of shortwave transmissions is being timed to cause maximum disruption to BBC World Service English broadcasts in China.
"The deliberate and co-ordinated efforts by authorities in countries such as China and Iran illustrate the significance and importance of the role the BBC undertakes to provide impartial and accurate information to audiences around the world."
The BBC added in a statement: "Though it is not possible at this stage to attribute the source of the jamming definitively, the extensive and co-ordinated efforts are indicative of a well-resourced country such as China.
"The BBC strongly condemns this action which is designed to disrupt audiences' free access to news and information.
"In the past couple of years the BBC has experienced jamming of satellite services. Whilst shortwave jamming is generally less frequent, it does affect BBC Persian transmissions in Iran and was historically used to block BBC broadcasts during the cold war."
The BBC World Service, which has a worldwide weekly audience of 239 million listeners, broadcasts on shortwave, AM, FM and on digital satellite and cable.
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This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timeThe decrease in shortwave broadcasting by the world services of free nations has made life a lot easier for totalitarian governments. Where news was broadcast to multiple regions on different frequencies, it was possible to pick up stations across the bands with a radio which was in most poor households.
Nowadays, big shortwave transmitters are expensive so only a few frequencies are used and transmitter locations reduced, which makes it much less effort to suppress either by broadcasting noise or by siting powerful local stations broadcasting less "controversial" news.
When the internet can be blocked at the flick of a switch, shortwave is still a way of reaching people in far flung places who own simple hardware and low power supplies. You can't spin a shortwave dial now without finding Radio China International all over it, which tells a story in itself.
Well at least the BBC WS still has shortwave, unlike many other foreign services. Just think how easy it would have been for the Chinese to have blocked the BBC WS internet audio stream, which would have basically cut them off completely.