President Trump limited the number of Chinese citizens who can work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations to 100. The spying activity reached a fever pitch and the move was symbolic of a growing intolerance for Chinese espionage. The propaganda activity undertaken by those news organizations was also unprecedented.
China announced today that it would expel American journalists working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. It also demanded that those outlets, as well as the Voice of America and Time magazine, provide the Chinese government with detailed information about their operations.
China instructed American journalists for the three news organizations whose press credentials are due to expire this year to “notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days.” Almost all the China-based journalists for the three organizations have press cards that expire this year.
The announcement went on to say that the American journalists now working in mainland China “will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.” The two territories are semiautonomous and in theory have greater press freedoms than the mainland.
To date, the US has not announced that COVID-19 was a virus created at the Wuhan Virology Institute and that the economic effects of that virus are the direct result of Chinese tinkering with germ warfare. But the propaganda efforts from China to get in front of that possible disclosure remain underway.
These types of tit for tat retaliations frequently escalate and lead to much nastier responses. The ice is getting thinner.
A sideshow distraction?
I don't think that the ice will break. Not over this. But the death of a thousand cuts approach usually leads to the brink.
No, I think that the Chinese government is very ham handed. They are used to dealing with their own people, who very rarely call BS on them (Hong Kong). They feel that they can treat everyone the way that they treat the peasants and are offended when people push back.
They almost sound like certain people, in a certain party, that infest DC.
Frank
I firmly believe the love is lost… time to pull back all American based manufacturers and recall all diplomatic staff except the Assistant Undersecretary for Protocol at a Consular Station. Close the Embassy. Refuse to take calls from the Head Han.
Frank, Bernie (and friends) are their comrades.
The blush is off the rose. The PRC is trying to undermine the US bond market now that we're in extremis. It will only work if they win, and I don't think that they will. Then I'm of the opinion that everyone will wall them up inside a bamboo curtain.
That was my dry-humor, tongue-in-cheek, comment; pointing out the obvious. Perhaps I should have made a 'Remove tongue from cheek' ending.
Frank
Trump Hits Back At China By Announcing U.S. Will Also Expel American Journalists
Oh, if only!
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