China says Wall Street Journal admitted mistake after its reporters were expelled

Wall Street Journal reporters Philip Wen (left) and Josh Chin at Beijing Capital International Airport before their departure on Feb 24, 2020. PHOTO: AFP

BEIJING (REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, AFP) - China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday (Feb 26) that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had been in touch with the Chinese government over a February column that Beijing says carried a racist headline, and had admitted its "mistake".

Toby Doman, spokesman for WSJ's publisher Dow Jones & Co, declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Reuters.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters that the newspaper had not formally apologised.

China last week ordered three journalists with the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau to leave the country after the newspaper declined to apologise for a Feb 3 column with a headline calling China the "real sick man of Asia".

The WSJ reported that the three were Deputy Bureau Chief Josh Chin and reporters Chao Deng and Philip Wen. Chin and Deng are both US nationals, while Wen is an Australian citizen.

The Feb 3 article described China as the "sick man of Asia",a phrase often used by 19th century European powers to describe the weakened state of the Qing empire, which then ruled China. The op-ed ran as China began battling the coronavirus.

"The editors used such a racially discriminatory title, triggering indignation and condemnation among the Chinese people and the international community," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had told reporters in an online press conference. "China demands the WSJ recognise the severity of its mistake, make an official apology and hold the persons involved accountable."

The three journalists' visas were cancelled and they were ordered to leave China in five days, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said. None were involved in the opinion piece or its headline, it said, adding that the move was "an extreme and obvious attempt by the Chinese authorities to intimidate foreign news organisations".

Two of the journalists flew out from Beijing on Monday (Feb 24), but the third - Chao Deng - remains in the locked-down city of Wuhan, where he has been reporting from.

Chao will not be expelled for the time being, but will not be permitted to work while she remains in China, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao had told a press briefing on Tuesday (Feb 25).

"Out of humanitarian reasons, we will continue to allow her to stay in Wuhan, but she cannot conduct interviews," Zhao said. "After the epidemic is over, we will allow her to leave as quickly as possible."

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was considering an official response to China's expulsion of the three reporters from its country.

"I haven't really been given a full briefing on that. We're going to look at it," Trump said during a news conference in New Delhi, where he was concluding a two-day trip.

The US is weighing whether to expel Chinese journalists in response, according to US officials familiar with the deliberations. There is an intense debate within the administration over how severely to respond to the expulsions last week.

"I don't think it's fair," Trump said of China's move. "We give very good access" to Chinese journalists," he said. "We'll have a decision made on that relatively soon."

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