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WASHINGTON: The United States issued a new rule on Friday (May 8) that tightens visa guidelines for Chinese journalists, saying it was in response to the treatment of American journalists in China, a change coming amid tensions between the two nations on the global pandemic coronavirus.
The United States and China have participated in a series of retaliatory actions involving journalists in recent months.
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In March, China expelled American journalists from three American newspapers, a month after the United States said it would start treating five Chinese state-owned media entities with U.S. operations the same as foreign embassies. A day after the United States’ verdict on state entities, Beijing expelled three Wall Street Journal correspondents, two Americans and one Australian, after the publication of an opinion column that China denounced as racist.
In issuing the new regulation on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security cited what it called China’s “suppression of independent journalism”.
The regulation, which takes effect on Monday, will limit visas for Chinese journalists to a period of 90 days, with the option of extension. Such visas are typically open and do not need to be extended unless the employee moves to a different company or medium.
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A senior DHS official, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter, said the new rules would allow the department to review Chinese journalist visa applications more frequently and would likely reduce the total number of Chinese journalists in the United States.
“It will create greater national security protections,” said the official.
The new rules will not apply to journalists with passports from Hong Kong or Macao, the two semi-autonomous territories of China, according to DHS.
Tensions between the United States and China have increased in recent months as the new coronavirus spread across the world, killing more than 269,000 people worldwide to date, according to a Reuters count.
President Donald Trump said in late April that he was confident that the coronavirus could have originated from a Chinese virology laboratory, but declined to describe the evidence, raising tensions with Beijing over the origins of the deadly outbreak. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, backed by the Chinese state, has dismissed the allegations. Most experts believe the virus originated from a wildlife retail market in Wuhan.
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