China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday (Oct. 26) demanded that six U.S. media outlets report on their operations in China within a week, in retaliation for Washington’s classification five days earlier of six Chinese media outlets operating in the United States as foreign missions.
According to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the six U.S. media outlets affected include ABC, the Los Angeles Times, Minnesota Public Radio, National Affairs Publishing Company, Newsweek, and U.S. Special Topics News Service.
Xinhua reported that the Chinese side demanded that these media outlets “report to the Chinese side within seven days from now all their staff, finances, operations, real estate owned and other written information in China.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press conference that the move “is a necessary reciprocal countermeasure against the U.S. side’s unreasonable suppression of Chinese media organizations in the U.S., and it is completely legitimate and reasonable defense.”
He also vowed that China will take further retaliatory measures if the U.S. side “insists on adding to its mistakes.
Relations between the U.S. and China are currently at their lowest point in the 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, due to issues such as the trade war, the neo-crown virus and human rights.
Five days ago, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s State Department designated six more PRC propaganda agencies operating in the United States as foreign missions, bringing to 15 the number of Chinese media outlets designated as foreign missions this year.
Pompeo said the move was part of an effort to counter “the propaganda efforts of the Chinese Communist Party in the United States. “We just want to make sure that the American people, the consumers of information, can distinguish between news written by the free press and propaganda put out by the Communist Party of China itself. (They’re) not the same thing.”
Upon designation as a foreign mission, the agencies must notify the U.S. State Department of the names of their staff and real estate holdings.
The media war between the U.S. and China has continued to heat up this year. The U.S. State Department announced on June 22 this year that four Chinese official media outlets in the U.S. – China Central Television (CCTV), China News Agency (CNA), People’s Daily, and Global Times – were designated as foreign missions.
On February 18, 2011, the State Department designated Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network (CGTN), China Radio International (CRI), China Daily Distribution Company, and Haitian Development Corporation, the overseas agent of People’s Daily, as foreign missions. In all, the U.S. government has taken a similar approach three times this year and has named 15 Chinese media outlets as “foreign missions.
The U.S. and China have also engaged in a tug-of-war over visas for journalists. The U.S. State Department announced in March that it would reduce the number of journalists working in U.S. offices of major Chinese official media from 160 to 100. China expelled about a dozen journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
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