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US tightens rules on four more Chinese state 'propaganda' outlets
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The United States on Monday changed the status of four more Chinese state media organizations, denouncing them as propaganda outlets, renewing a feud with Beijing. (Shutterstock/-)
T
he United States on Monday changed the status of four more Chinese state media organizations, denouncing them as propaganda outlets, renewing a feud with Beijing.
The State Department said it was reclassifying four outlets -- China Central Television, the China News Service, the People's Daily and the Global Times -- as foreign missions rather than media outlets in the United States, adding to five others designated in February.
All nine outlets "are effectively controlled by the government of the People's Republic of China," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.
The state-run news organizations will be required to report details on their US-based staff and real estate transactions to the State Department. Their reporting will not be restricted, officials said.
"These four outlets are not media outlets; they are propaganda outlets," David Stilwell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, told reporters.
He declined to say if the four outlets would be asked to reduce their US-based staff -- action taken against the five organizations that were earlier designated.
The announcement was further evidence that a closed-door meeting last week in Hawaii between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior Chinese official Yang Jiechi did little to ease tensions.
Pompeo said later that he considered China a "rogue" player and said he was "very frank" in expressing his concerns to Yang including over Beijing's response to the coronavirus pandemic and its proposed security law in Hong Kong.
The state news outlets earlier designated as foreign missions were the Xinhua news agency, the China Global Television Network, China Radio International and the US distributor of the People's Daily.
After the United States ordered them to cut by nearly half the Chinese nationals working for them, Beijing hit back by expelling US citizens working for three major newspapers -- The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Beijing said at the time it was taking reciprocal action against the "oppression" of its reporters.
Media rights advocates have voiced misgivings about the approach of President Donald Trump's administration, saying it gave China a pretext to kick out journalists who have fearlessly reported on the coronavirus pandemic and the mass incarceration of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.
