The Department of Homeland Security said Friday the United States will shorten the visa length for Chinese journalists working for non-American news outlets to 90 days. Previously, journalists with Chinese passports were granted open-ended visas.
They can apply for extensions under the new rules, but renewed visas will also last just 90 days. The new limit won’t apply to reporters from Hong Kong Macau, or to mainland Chinese citizens who hold green cards.
It’s the latest development in a media war between Washington and Beijing that has intensified during the coronavirus pandemic. American officials said the rules were meant to counterbalance the “suppression of independent journalism” in China, whose government expelled journalists from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post in March. Before that, the U.S. reduced the number of Chinese citizens employed by multiple state-controlled Chinese news organizations to work in the country.
The New York Times notes the move wasn’t unexpected; U.S. intelligence officials have long believed some journalists at Beijing-run outlets are spies, and the Trump administration has designated some Chinese news agencies foreign government functionaries.
The heightened tensions between the world’s two biggest powers didn’t just show up in the media world Friday. U.S. lawmakers wrote to nearly 60 countries asking them to support Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization, a move that likely won’t sit well with China. And Washington also blocked a United Nations security council resolution calling for a global ceasefire during the pandemic because it indirectly referenced the WHO, which the U.S. has blamed in conjunction with China for failing to suppress the outbreak.
