The United States will start treating four major Chinese media outlets as foreign embassies, it said on Monday, a move that will restrict their operations on American soil.
David Stilwell, the senior U.S. diplomat for East Asia, told reporters the designation would affect China Central Television, the China News Service, the People’s Daily and the Global Times, and reflected their real status as “propaganda outlets” under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
The move comes as U.S.-China tensions are heightening in the run-up to President Donald Trump’s November re-election bid.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Plans for the new designations were first reported by Reuters earlier this month.
The four outlets will be added to five others placed under restrictions in February over U.S. allegations that they were used by China and its Communist rulers to spread propaganda.
The outlets will be required to inform the U.S. State Department of their personnel rosters and real-estate holdings, similar to rules covering embassies and other diplomatic missions.
In March, Washington said it was slashing the number of journalists allowed to work at U.S. offices of major Chinese media outlets to 100 from 160 due to Beijing’s “long-standing intimidation and harassment of journalists.”
In response, China said it was revoking accreditations of American correspondents with the New York Times, News Corp’s Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post whose credentials expire by the end of 2020.
Referring to the new designations, Stilwell said: “The Communist Party does not just exercise operational control over these propaganda entities, but it has full editorial control over their content. This … is an obvious step in increasing the transparency of these and other (Chinese) government propaganda activities in the United States.”
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Chang)
