Washington slashes number of Chinese state media staff in US

WASHINGTON • The US is slashing the number of Chinese employees permitted to work at the American offices of major Chinese state-owned media outlets to retaliate against Beijing over its "long-standing intimidation and harassment of journalists", senior State Department officials said.

China last month revoked the visas of three Wall Street Journal reporters in Beijing after the newspaper declined to apologise for a column with a headline calling China the "Real sick man of Asia".

Another reporter with the paper had to leave the country last year after China declined to renew his visa.

One of the State Department officials said the US move was not particularly linked to the Wall Street Journal case.

"For years, the (Chinese) government has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation against American and other foreign journalists in China," another department official told reporters in a briefing on Monday.

"There's a long-standing issue here. We've been imploring the Chinese for years and years now to improve their treatment of journalists in China. So, this is not linked to any one particular incident," he said, but added that the expulsion of Journal reporters was a "fairly egregious" example.

From March 13, Washington will cap the number of US-based employees of Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, and China Daily Distribution Corp at 100, from 160.

The four outlets were among the five earlier designated by the United States as foreign embassies, officials said, as a first step of this move.

Both officials spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

Tensions between the two superpowers have escalated since US President Donald Trump came to office three years ago, with disputes over issues ranging from trade to accusations of Chinese spying in the US and to American support for Taiwan.

On Monday, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said in a report that the Chinese government has "weaponised" visas as part of a stepped-up campaign of pressure on foreign journalists.

While the US goal was to get China to be more open with foreign journalists, Washington was ready to take further action if Beijing were to retaliate, one of the officials said.

"If in fact they decide to take this in a further negative direction, however, of course... all options would be on the table. I can't tell you what in particular we would do, but we'd sit down, review the circumstances and then consider all of our options."

The personnel caps would be placed on the entities as opposed to people, hence it would be up to the media outlets to decide the necessary staffing cuts, the officials said.

While Washington will not be sending anyone back, the officials acknowledged that the Chinese individuals whose visas are contingent on their ability to work in the US may be forced to leave the country.

REUTERS