Trump administration announces new restrictions on Chinese journalists

President Trump’s administration on Monday announced new restrictions against Chinese journalists working for state media, a reaction to how American and other foreign journalists are treated in China.

The administration will implement a personnel cap on five Chinese state-controlled media entities operating in the U.S., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. This means the government will regulate the number of Chinese citizens allowed to work for these entities within the U.S. 

The State Department had identified the five media outlets as “foreign missions of the People’s Republic of China” last month.

“Unlike foreign media organizations in China, these entities are not independent news organizations,” the statement from Pompeo read. 

“The decision to implement this personnel cap is not based on any content produced by these entities, nor does it place any restrictions on what the designated entities may publish in the United States,” he continued. 

The secretary criticized China’s “increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation against American and other foreign journalists” in their country, calling their restrictions “misguided.”

Pompeo cited that the U.S. has allowed foreign journalists to “work freely and without the threat of reprisal.”

“Our goal is reciprocity,” Pompeo said. “As we have done in other areas of the U.S.-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 U.S. and other foreign press in China.”

U.S. administration officials said the rules would also put a duration of stay on all Chinese nationals working in the U.S. on I visas for foreign media workers, according to Axios.

One senior administration official told Axios that “The objective is to introduce a degree of fairness in our relationship with China.”

China had recently expelled three Wall Street Journal employees, after the foreign ministry said an op-ed headline in the newspaper was “racist.” The expulsions came after the Trump administration designated the five media outlets as under control of the Chinese government.