The Trump administration announced on June 22 that it was designating four more Chinese media organizations as “propaganda outlets”, putting them on par with diplomatic missions, in a new round of restrictions likely to lead to some form of retaliation from China.
David Stilwell, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said that China Central Television, China News Service, People’s Daily and the Global Times would have to report details of their US staffing and what their US real estate holdings are to the State Department.
“In designating these outlets as foreign missions, we are formally recognizing the China party state’s effective control over so-called media entities, including those that operate here in the United States,” Stilwell told reporters.
“While the Chinese Communist Party has always tightly controlled China’s state news agencies, its control has actually tightened in recent years,” he said. “These four entities are not media but propaganda outlets.”
This is the second time the US has designated Chinese media outlets as foreign entities, requiring them to submit to the rules and regulations that cover diplomatic missions.
The earlier round had designated China Radio, the English-language newspaper China Daily and CGTN, an English-language broadcaster, as the equivalent of government functionaries. Hai Tian, also included in the first round, is the New York-based distribution agent for People’s Daily.
“This designation recognizes [People’s Republic of China] propaganda outlets as foreign missions and increases transparency relating to the CCP and PRC government’s media activities in the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.
As per the Foreign Missions Act, US-based employees of all nine organisations will be treated the same as staff at Beijing’s diplomatic missions, meaning that they will need to register with the State Department as foreign functionaries and report any real estate holdings they have in the US.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters on June 23 that Beijing would be forced to make an “appropriate response” to the move if the US did not immediately stop and fix its “wrongful practices”.
“This is yet another example of the US’ naked political suppression against Chinese media, and will seriously interfere with Chinese media in their reporting activities in the US,” he said. “This also further exposes the hypocrisy of what the US flaunts as its so-called freedom of press and speech.”
In retaliation for the State Department’s move in February, the Chinese foreign ministry in March revoked the press credentials for American journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, giving them 10 days to return their media passes.
When asked about the effectiveness of this effort, given China’s retaliation in expelling US journalists the last time the State Department took this action, Stilwell said, “The Chinese government does what it does. You can’t say that they’re doing it specifically because we’re doing to them. It’s simply an excuse.”
At the same time that China expelled the US journalists, Beijing also declared five US media outlets – Voice of America, the Times, the Journal, the Post and Time magazine – to be foreign government functionaries, identifying them as agencies controlled by Washington.
Last month, the US Department of Homeland Security said it would limit mainland Chinese journalists employed by non-American news outlets in the country to 90-day work visas, ending the open-ended, single-entry stays that the agency had previously granted to most of them.
US targeting of Chinese media outlets began in February 2019, when CGTN America was forced to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Four months later, CGTN was denied passes to cover the US Congress under the Radio and Television Correspondents Association’s stepped-up use of FARA, which was passed in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda.