China expels American journalists from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

China banned all American nationals working in the country for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as part of an escalating media war with the United States that follows restrictions placed by the Trump administration on Chinese media companies operating in the U.S., its foreign ministry announced Tuesday.

"The U.S. government has placed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel in the U.S., purposely made things difficult for their normal reporting assignments, and subjected them to growing discrimination and politically-motivated oppression," the ministry said in a statement, published in English. 

China instructed U.S. journalists whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020 to notify the foreign ministry in Beijing within four calendar days, beginning on Tuesday. It asked them to hand over their press cards within ten days. 

In early March, the Trump administration ordered several Chinese media organizations to dismiss dozens of U.S.-based Chinese nationals as part of what U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as "our goal" of "reciprocity." Pompeo said that the move was part of "long-overdue" efforts by Washington to achieve a "level playing field" following years of harassment by China of American and western journalists. 

Reacting to Tuesday's announcement Pompeo said that China’s actions were misguided and served only to highlight the lack of press freedoms inside China.

"The Chinese will tell you that they want … people to know more about the country, and yet they continue to take actions like the one you see today, where they deny the world the capacity to know what's really going on inside of their country," he said.

As part of its new demands, China asked the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, as well as the Voice of America and Time magazine, to provide the Chinese government with detailed information about their operations.

The U.S. move in March came in the wake of a decision in late February by authorities in Beijing to revoke the press credentials and order the expulsion of three Wall Street Journal reporters in retaliation for a headline on an opinion column about the coronavirus outbreak that China said was racist. That Feb. 3 column was written by Walter Russell Mead, a professor at Bard College. It argued that "Chinese authorities are still trying to conceal the true scale of the problem" of the virus that has now sickened more than 170,000 people and killed more than 7,000 worldwide. "China’s initial response to the crisis was less than impressive," Mead wrote, an assessment that China has now accepted. 

China's move in February, in turn, came a day after the Trump administration said it would begin treating five major Chinese state-run media entities with U.S. operations – Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio, China Daily and Hai Tian Development – as foreign embassies. These media companies are now required to register their employees and U.S. property with the U.S. State Department. A similar U.S. Justice Department measure is in place for some Russian state-backed media working in the U.S. such as Russia Today, an English-language TV network. 

The top editors of the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the New York Times spoke out against the expulsions. 

"We unequivocally condemn any action by China to expel U.S. reporters," said Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, after Tuesday's action by China.

"The Chinese government's decision is particularly regrettable because it comes in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis, when clear and reliable information about the international response to covid-19 is essential," he said in a tweet. 

In a statement, Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Matt Murray called the expulsion an "unprecedented attack on freedom of the press." 

"Our commitment to reporting fully and deeply on China is unchanged," he said. 

New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet called the expulsion "especially irresponsible" when the free flow of information about coronavirus was necessary.

"It is a grave mistake for China to move backwards and cut itself off from several of the world's top news organizations," he said in a statement. 

All three news organizations were at the forefront of reporting on the coronavirus outbreak in China at a time when the government tried to suppress information about the pandemic.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have fluctuated since President Donald Trump took office. The world's two largest economies have been locked for months in difficult trade talks that have precipitated on-and-off trade tariffs, and each side has accused the other of espionage. Many international outlets are inaccessible from China, which operates what is known informally as the "Great Firewall of China."