The US Department of State announced on March 2, local time, that it is imposing a cap on the number of Chinese employees of five China’s major state-run media outlets operating within the United States. This move, a groundless and unreasonable de-facto expulsion of Chinese journalists, is in nature a political crackdown by the US out of its Cold War mentality and ideological bias. It exposes the American hypocrisy of the so-called “freedom of the press”, and its stark double standards, hegemony and bullying. The Chinese side firmly opposes and strongly condemns this move, and urges the US side to immediately change its course and correct its wrongdoings. The Chinese side reserves the right to respond and take further actions.

The media is an important bridge and bond that facilitates the communication and deepens the understanding of people of all countries. For all these years, Chinese journalists in the US have always complied with the American laws and rules, upheld their professional ethics and followed the principles of objectivity, fairness, truthfulness and accuracy, and their professionalism has been widely acknowledged by their peers in the US. Chinese journalists in the US have played a positive role in helping the Chinese and Americans to know more about each other, promoting people-to-people exchanges between the two sides, and boosting the development of bilateral ties.

Where is the “freedom of press” that the US always boasts about? It baselessly obstructs the normal operation of Chinese media outlets in the country, which speaks volumes of its hypocrisy. First Washington required some Chinese media outlets to register as "foreign agents”, then it designated five Chinese media outlets as “foreign missions”, and now it launched a de-facto expulsion of Chinese journalists in the US by imposing a so-called personnel cap. Washington’s escalating suppression of Chinese media would seriously affect Chinese media's normal coverage in the US, and seriously disrupt normal people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. America has laid bare its hypocrisy and arbitrary attitude toward the media to the international community. ARTICLE 19, an international NGO, pointed out in a published article on its website that the environment of journalism in the US has kept deteriorating. Journalists are being attacked, searched, arrested, intercepted on borders, and restricted in the release of public information from time to time. Thomas Hughes, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, commented that the threat to the freedom of the press in the US has been rising appallingly in recent years.

“Our goal is reciprocity,” said US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, in a statement. “As we have done in other areas of the US-China relationship”. But in reality, it is nothing but an excuse to discriminate against, expel and oppress the Chinese media groups. As a matter of fact there are only nine Chinese media agencies in the US as opposed to 29 American ones in China. China has never imposed limits on the number of US media outlets' China offices and their employees. How many journalists they send to China is a decision made by those media agencies independently rather than the result of China’s limitation. Yet the US side has played little tricks constantly to impose “non-reciprocal” treatment on Chinese media. It’s been restricting Chinese reporters' normal travel by denying or delaying their visas since 2018, and the visa applications of at least 21 journalists had been denied since 2019. While American journalists have multiple entries to China as long as their visa is valid, the US has insisted on issuing single-entry visas to Chinese journalists, which is nothing but discrimination.

Incontrovertible facts have fully demonstrated how ludicrous the excuse of “reciprocity” sounds. To tell the truth, those who still cling to the Cold War mentality and ideological bias have lost confidence. What they are challenging now is exactly what they are afraid of - the international discourse power of China that’s built on fairness and justice.

The US has torn down the mask of “freedom of the press” and unscrupulously wielded its “big sticks” to harm the international relations and cooperation for political purposes that are only too self-evident. Public opinions in the world all describe this personnel cap on Chinese media outlets as an all-out crackdown on China in the media field, which may plunge the China-US ties into a dangerous cycle of tit-for-tat. Some media even warned that while all countries are busy coping with the COVID-19 outbreak, such a move on the American part may block the flow of information and undermine the global fight against the virus.

It is a basic international rule and duty to recognize the media’s active role in promoting international communication and collaboration and to facilitate their normal activities in today’s world. It’s clear to all that a cold war, zero-sum game mindset will find no place among the global mainstream today. We advise the US to stop its political oppression of Chinese media immediately and do more to enhance the mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries for common interests.