The Sino-American rivalry has just claimed new victims: American journalists based in China. The Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday (March 17th) gave ten days to American journalists working in China for the New york times, the Wall street journal and the Washington Post "Whose press card expires in 2020" to make this one. "They will no longer be allowed to work as journalists in the People's Republic of China, including the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao", indicates the press release of the ministry. Foreign journalists based in China are issued – in the best of cases – an annual press card, almost all American journalists of these three media are concerned.
In addition, these three media, as well as Voice of america and Time, must provide written information about their workforce, finances, activities and real estate in China.
Finally, China will take "Measures against American journalists", "In response to the discriminatory restrictions the United States has imposed on Chinese journalists".
These various announcements constitute, according to the press release, "Countermeasures against restrictive measures taken by the United States against Chinese news agencies".
A "cold war mentality"
On February 18, the American administration announced that the new China agency, CGTN television, Radio China International and the newspapers China Daily and People's Daily would now be considered diplomatic missions and no longer media by the State Department. On March 2, it was reported that these bodies "Propaganda" could only employ a maximum of 100 Chinese nationals from March 13, up from 160 at the end of February. New China, with 59 employees concerned, is the most affected by this decision, before CGTN (30), the China Daily (9) and Radio Chine Internationale (2). The American distributor of People's Daily does not appear to employ Chinese. China then denounced "The cold war mentality and an ideological bias" from the United States and announced that it would retaliate.
On February 19, Beijing gave three days to three journalists from Wall street journal – two Americans and an Australian – to leave the country. It was not explicitly a response to the American decision announced the day before but a reaction to a point of view published on February 3 by the American daily headline: "China, a sick man from Asia". A title judged "Racist" by Beijing which demanded – in vain – an apology from the Wall street journal.
