Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
China has expelled at least 13 American journalists in the biggest crackdown of its kind in recent memory, a move that Beijing called “self-defense” for restrictions placed on Chinese state media representatives in the US.
The journalists, from The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, have been given 10 days to surrender their press cards and – in what appears to be an unprecedented move – will also be barred from relocating to the Chinese semi-autonomous territories of Hong Kong and Macau.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) said it “deplores” the decision, while Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called it yet more proof that “press freedom is in jeopardy everywhere”.
Journalists caught up in the expulsions include Amy Qin of The New York Times, who last month spent 14 days in federal quarantine in San Diego after reporting from the epicenter of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan.
She said being ordered to leave by China left her with “so many feelings”. “I keep coming back to my last trip, to Wuhan, where people were so willing to talk – they wanted the world to know what was happening to them and to hold their government accountable,” she said.
China’s foreign ministry said the move was “reciprocal”, following an announcement from Washington earlier this month that five state-controlled Chinese media outlets would be restricted to 100 journalist visas, the de facto expelling of about 60 journalists.
The US said its own move was the result of increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of American and other foreign journalists working in China.
“The US has said that all options are on the table. Today, I can also tell the US that all options are on the table for China,” foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told a regular daily news briefing.
A foreign ministry statement accused the US of demonstrating a “Cold War mentality” towards China. “China urges the US to immediately change course, undo the damage, and stop its political oppression and arbitrary restrictions on Chinese media organizations,” a foreign ministry statement said. “Should the US choose to go further down the wrong path, it could expect more countermeasures from China.”
The FCCC said that, prior to Wednesday’s announcement, China had expelled nine journalists since 2013.
