At least 13 US journalists facing expulsion from China

At least 13 American journalists stand to be expelled from China in retaliation for a new limit imposed by the Trump administration on visas for Chinese state-owned media operating in the U.S.

The Chinese government announced on March 18 that Americans working at three major U.S. newspapers would have to surrender their press cards within 10 days. They will all but certainly have to leave the country, as their visas are tied to their media credentials.

The number of affected journalists at the three papers The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post is at least 13 and could be higher depending on how broadly the group is defined, said the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, or FCCC.

It would be by far the largest expulsion of foreign journalists from China in recent memory.

"There are no winners in the use of journalists as diplomatic pawns by the world's two preeminent economic powers,'' the FCCC said in a statement.

The U.S. announced earlier this month that five state-controlled Chinese media outlets would be restricted to 100 visas, the de facto expelling of about 60 journalists. It cited increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation of American and other foreign journalists working in China.

The Chinese outlets employ about 160 Chinese citizens in the U.S. and include the official Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television Network, the overseas arm of state broadcaster CCTV.

The foreign ministry announcement said that American citizens working for the three newspapers with credentials expiring this year must surrender their press cards within 10 days. They will also be barred from working in the semi-autonomous territories of Hong Kong and Macao, the ministry said....

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