
China Bans Americans Working for WSJ, NYT, WaPo - big_chungus
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bans-all-u-s-nationals-working-for-the-wall-street-journal-new-york-times-washington-post-whose-press-credentials-end-in-2020-11584464690
======
dang
All: This thread is terrible and violates the spirit of this site in too many
ways to list. HN is not a place for nationalistic flamewar or accusing each
other. Please don't do that damage here. The container is fragile.

If this epidemic continues, we're going to do less "please don't" and more
"we've banned". I don't mean the coronavirus— I mean the epidemic of violating
HN's guidelines. Please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and stick to the rules when posting here.

The vast majority of the community come here for curious conversation, not to
hear people bashing each other and their countries in the same few ways over
and over again. That's not only nasty, it's tedious. Please take it elsewhere.

More explanation in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605365)

------
koboll
I truly don't understand why "expel Chinese journalists" was even considered
as a reasonable course of action by the US.

It may not explicitly violate the letter of the 1st Amendment, but it
certainly violates its spirit, not to mention invites reciprocal action like
this that only deepens the fog of war over our most dangerous adversary power.

There are many, many legitimate ways to punish foreign governments, but the
expulsion of reporters should never be among them, unless we are at war with
that government.

"But China did it first!" Well, then we should highlight how outrageous and
unacceptable that behavior is, and sanction them some other way. Not
reciprocate.

~~~
tracker1
It's kind of ridiculous all the way around. On the one hand, the U.S. should
probably be more pragmatic in cases like this. On the flip side, I'm frankly
surprised that they're simply being banned/removed from the country.

I'm all for calling out a lot of the issues on both sides of the ocean on this
one, even if I do feel that the actions of one country are _far_ worse than
the other. Two wrongs do not make a right.

The U.S. should never have allowed more than half of any given industry
(especially medicine and other essential infrastructure) to be produced
overseas to begin with. The trade war was bound to happen, still, civility
should always remain at the table.

------
Leary
America will surely retaliate.

Here's a timeline for those who haven't followed this:

Feb 3rd: WSJ publishes opinion piece titled "China Is the Real Sick Man of
Asia"

Feb 19th: China expels three China-based WSJ reporters

March 2nd: America limits journalists from Chinese state media from 160 to 100

~~~
reaperducer
_America will surely retaliate._

No.

There are thousands and thousands of journalists working for foreign
governments, friendly and hostile, in the United States. Some hostile foreign
governments even operate domestic broadcasting operations in America. (China,
Russia, etc...)

The worst thing that's ever been done in recent memory is requiring those
operations to register as foreign agents. And I think at one time there was a
move to limit the Kremlin's cadre to something like 1,000 people. But I might
be remembering that part wrong.

~~~
Leary
Mike Pompeo on March 2nd:

“Our goal is reciprocity. As we have done in other areas of the U.S.-China
relationship, we seek to establish a long-overdue level playing field,” Pompeo
said in a statement to CNBC about the cap. “It is our hope that this action
will spur Beijing to adopt a more fair and reciprocal approach to U.S. and
other foreign press in China.”

Reciprocity = you limit our journalist we'll limit yours.

I expect a ban on those 100 remaining Chinese state media journalists.

~~~
ilikehurdles
What a ridiculously stupid goal. If we had a goal of reciprocity with every
authoritarian dictatorship we'd end up enacting their policies until our
government looks no different from our adversaries'.

~~~
azinman2
Assuming it’s done on a per-country basis, how else do you not get taken
advantage of?

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
You can't force other countries to behave how you'd like. Some countries don't
have freedom of the press. The United States should not be in the business of
restricting freedom of the press in order to pressure other countries to
respect it.

The goal is for the United States to follow the principles laid down in the
Bill of Rights. Throwing those out in order to pressure other countries is a
terrible idea.

------
dmix
Aw, WSJ videos covering China were some of my favourite content. China is
really lashing out.

Nothing is surprising since they banned Zedd from China simply for liking a
South Park tweet, he's a very popular (and harmlessly generic) pop musician:

[https://twitter.com/Zedd/status/1182376966495838208](https://twitter.com/Zedd/status/1182376966495838208)

------
reaperducer
For thousands of years, tyrants and small-minded people have always tried to
shoot the messenger. It seldom stops the message.

~~~
triceratops
"Shooting the messenger" refers to envoys, emissaries, ambassadors, and other
official agents and representatives. Harming them has led to some devastating
consequences for the people doing the harm.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Khwarezmia#Origins_of_the_conflict)

Suppression of the press is unfortunately very effective in the short term.
Historians may eventually uncover the truth but it will be far too late.

~~~
coribuci
> Suppression of the press is unfortunately very effective in the short term.
> Historians may eventually uncover the truth but it will be far too late.

As Frank Herbert said: "History is written by historians"

------
sub7
The US and China are at war. The last Cold War kind of gave us the internet so
hopefully we fund some big ambitious tech this time too.

~~~
FpUser
Nice war, given the amount of trade between the countries. Sure they call each
other names but when it comes to money the rest be damned.

~~~
downerending
Given their threat this week to withhold ingredients for pharmaceuticals, we
should be seriously reconsidering the amount and kind of trade we do with
China. We'll see whether they continue in this, but it has a whiff of Faustian
bargain at the moment.

~~~
canada_dry
> Given their threat this week to withhold ingredients for pharmaceuticals

Source?

~~~
downerending
Most mainstream sources buried this, but search for "mighty sea of
coronavirus".

------
vincvinc
This is a big hit for journalism about China. A lot of very good quality
reporting on (among others) Xinjiang came from these people. We will all be
much less informed about China in the future.

The subtle shift in confidence that this action implies is that China is
confident in itself after "beating" the virus while the west is struggling.

A "media war" between China and the US might be worse than a trade war. While
a trade war is just about numbers, this will be about ideology and there will
be no middle ground.

------
mengibar10
There's growing resentment against Western media for the way the news
reported. Take a look at following links. I saw one of them personally on
NYTimes couple of days ago. The one from CNN below the banner reads
"California prisons" but the picture is from a mosque in Istanbul. One
incident is a mistake, but multiple times same "mistake" only show
malevolence.

[https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg...](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FES7n-NcWkAMqaO1.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcnn%2Fstatus%2F1237986945424334848&tbnid=6WOnxz6YnBrtJM&vet=12ahUKEwji1IDMjaLoAhUJz6wKHXyEBJcQMygBegUIARDzAQ..i&docid=8MWg45kUmJxQrM&w=720&h=960&itg=1&q=cnn%20prisons%20in%20california%20are%20suspending&ved=2ahUKEwji1IDMjaLoAhUJz6wKHXyEBJcQMygBegUIARDzAQ)

[https://img.piri.net/mnresize/840/-/resim/imagecrop/2020/03/...](https://img.piri.net/mnresize/840/-/resim/imagecrop/2020/03/17/09/52/resized_31609-e8c09d93mansetkapak.jpg)

~~~
catalogia
Seems like a weird mistake that somehow got propagated to multiple platforms
at once. What would be the ulterior motive of portraying Californian prisons
as ornate places of worship? I don't see any political angle here, so it seems
reasonable to assume it was a mistake.

(I didn't downvote you. As far as I'm concerned, CNN is frequently sloppy and
deserves criticism for that.)

~~~
knolax
When people coming back from Iran were getting COVID-19, all the articles
reporting on it were pictures of the New York Chinatown. It wasn't even to
showcase people wearing masks either, in one instance it was literally just a
picture of the exterior of some local Chinese Restaurant.

~~~
catalogia
Seems like a trend of incompetence.

------
mac01021
"... whose press credentials end in 2020" is a significant part of the
headline missing from the HN title.

~~~
cepp
All reporters must renew visas every year so it is inconsequential. It's a
blanket ban.

------
predictmktegirl
It's difficult to have compassion and empathy without discussion. These sorts
of maneuvers tend to have horrifying butterfly effects.

------
xster
I'm surprised they didn't start with outlawing receiving money from NED or
subsidiaries first.

------
markmiro
This signals to me that the outlets are good sources of information

~~~
cepp
In reality, it's just that these outlets are the only ones with large bureau
operations. There are plenty of other independent reporters and smaller
sources with much better coverage.

------
seanmcdirmid
Note that they are also banning from working in Hong Kong and Macau.

------
gwd
Can't read the article behind a paywall, but this is China's side of the
story:

[https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1...](https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1757162.shtml)

Seems this is part of an ongoing diplomatic spat.

EDIT: FYI, couldn't read the article due to a paywall, did a search, found out
some about the history. Thought this added information to the conversation.
Yes, this is clearly propaganda, but I still thought it was interesting.
You're all of age, you can read this sort of propaganda without being harmed.

------
coliveira
This is an information war. The US is also banning Chinese journalists. In the
end, everybody is losing and I don't see anyone here doing the right thing.

------
api
I wonder if they're under-reporting their COVID-19 numbers to win propaganda
points.

Naaaaah... impossible.

~~~
makomk
I definitely suspect that might be the case. In order to push back against
local public anger, the Chinese government have invested a lot of credibility
in the idea that their handling of Covid-19 is a shining model for the rest of
the world, but it just doesn't feel like it should work. Exponential growth
being what it is, if it failed it'd be possible to remain in denial for a
while and cover it up for a while longer but sooner or later...

------
adultSwim
I can't blame them..

------
JungleGymSam
China sucks.

------
bitxbit
China is going to face a deep recession as corporations rethink supply chain.
The communist party needs something to blame and US is a perfect target.

------
datashow2
@dang, please ban all accounts involved in this thread.

~~~
mengibar10
:) Including yours? Buy why?

------
mjevans
Paywall

~~~
jwilk
[https://archive.vn/N2AqW](https://archive.vn/N2AqW)

------
friedman23
What a coincidence, I'm subscribed to most of those!

------
onetimemanytime
It's war (of words) The Chinese Virus vs US bioweapon. Plus China might be
hiding something

~~~
Gibbon1
Also those newspapers were publishing propaganda pieces accusing the Chinese
Government of acting in bad faith during the epidemic. That doesn't go over
well at all.

------
resters
Don't forget that the US Government has sought to pursue charges against
journalists under the espionage act for reporting on government misconduct,
and that America's great firewall (Facebook) started suppressing RT after the
2016 election. Also, Al Jazeera is not carried by most US cable providers.

~~~
vorpalhex
Facebook is hardly a firewall and certainly not aligned to the government much
less the current administration.

RT is a full on naked propaganda machine and troll farm.

Al Jazeera is not carried by most US providers because they ran out of cash
and mostly went online.

~~~
resters
If you think about your reply, you'll realize it is nothing more than name
calling and does not refute the data points that I mentioned.

------
spectramax
People on HN engaging in whatboutism - can you please find a single article
from the CCP state media that criticizes the CCP? I could literally go on
WSJ/NYT/WaPo _right now_ and find many articles criticizing US government.

That's what _free press_ means. China has no tolerance for truth if it
collides with the CCP image.

~~~
dang
Please keep canned arguments like "whataboutism" off this site. It's a catchy
name that masks a logical fallacy, pretending that comparables aren't
relevant. Of course they're relevant. If something is comparable, it's
perfectly legitimate to bring up. If it's not comparable, refute it by
explaining why, not with a generic label.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment)

