Washington launched a campaign against the official Chinese media, and announced that it would treat it as foreign diplomatic missions, allowing it to tighten its working rules, and accused these institutions of publicizing Beijing.
The US State Department said that five Chinese government media, in the forefront of which is the new China agency “Xinhua” and the Chinese global television network “CGTN”, have become, according to the new procedures, the prior approval of the ministry to purchase any real estate in the United States, and it is also obligatory. Provides lists of all of its employees, including American citizens.
Nevertheless, the ministry stressed that the new procedures will never restrict the practice of these means for its media work in the United States.
Ministry officials said the decision had been communicated to all five Chinese media outlets, noting that what prompted Washington to do so was Beijing‘s increasing tightening grip on the media since incumbent President Xi Jinping took office in 2013.
“There is no disagreement that all of these five media outlets are part of the propaganda apparatus of the ruling Communist Party (in China) and that they receive their orders directly from the top of the pyramid,” in Beijing, a ministry official told reporters, asking not to be named.
The other three media outlets covered by the measure are “China Radio International”, “People’s Daily” and “China Daily”, an English-language newspaper published by the Communist Party of China.
Two senior State Department officials said the decision was taken because Chinese President Xi Jinping had used the aforementioned media more aggressively to spread the propaganda in Beijing.
Tensions between the two superpowers have escalated since President Donald Trump took office three years ago, as differences ranged between trade tariffs and accusations of Chinese espionage in the United States and the United States’ support for Taiwan.
In response to a question about whether there are fears that Beijing may retaliate against Western media outlets in China, an official indicated that foreign news outlets are already operating under strict rules in China. “These men work in a more liberal environment here in the United States than in the foreign press in the People’s Republic of China,” he said.
Source: Agencies
