The Chinese government announced Tuesday that it will revoke press credentials for American journalists who work for the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal and whose credentials were set to expire in 2020, retaliating for state media restrictions by the Trump administration.
Why it matters: It’s an escalation of a media war — in the midst of a global pandemic — that will result in U.S. journalists effectively being expelled from China. The journalists will not be permitted to work in Hong Kong or Macao, which is typically what blacklisted journalists have done in the past.
Context: The State Department announced last month that it designated five Chinese state media outlets as “foreign missions,” meaning they will be treated as arms of the Chinese government.
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Source: China bans journalists from 3 major U.S. newspapers – Axios