Reuters (and others) approved

The Danwei media blog reminds us of last year's run in between Xinhua in China and the international news and financial information providers who distribute there (or would like to). The Danwei piece is based on a Xinhua item reporting that four service providers have just been approved to distribute news and information in China:

The four agencies are Reuters Asia/Pacific Limited, part of the Reuters Group, JiJi Press of Japan, ET Net Limited of Hong Kong and NNA China Limited, which is affiliated to iNews Net Asia based in Japan.

But last year's effort by Xinhua to coral all news dissemination appears to lie close to the surface of this recent "reapproval":

It was Xinhua's first review of overseas news agencies that release news and information in China since promulgating a set of measures last September.

As China's state news agency, Xinhua News Agency is the institution legally empowered to administer the release of news and information in China by foreign news agencies.

My recollection is that last year this reached the level of a minor diplomatic spat. I wonder if this solves or it raises the issues all over again?