US imposes personnel cap on Chinese media companies in retaliation for ‘harassment and intimidation’ of American journalists

Washington is sharply reducing the number of Chinese allowed to work in US bureaus of major Chinese state-owned media in retaliation for Beijing’s “increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation” of American journalists, the nation’s top diplomat said on Monday.

The media landscape is the latest front in the growing tension between Beijing and Washington over issues ranging from trade and education to visas and trade secrets theft.

“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, we seek to establish a long-overdue level playing field. It is our hope that this action will spur Beijing to adopt a more fair and reciprocal approach to US and other foreign press in China.”

The move comes in the wake of action taken by Beijing last month to revoke the visas of three Wall Street Journal reporters after the newspaper stopped short of apologising for the headline of an opinion column. The headline referred to China as the “real sick man of Asia”, an echo of the 18th and 19th centuries when Chinese was weak and frequently subjected to foreign domination.

US officials, however, said they did not think the Journal incident was a major reason for the new restrictions.

Monday’s US announcement targets five organisations the Trump administration considers propaganda arms of the Chinese government. The restrictions are expected to reduce the number of their US-based Chinese employees to around 100 from the current 160.