Washington (AFP)

The United States sharply reduced the number of Chinese people allowed to work for the Beijing state media in the United States on Monday in response to restrictions on foreign press in China.

The announcement comes two weeks after the expulsion of three journalists from the American daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ), but Washington said the decision had been made to "restore a long overdue equality" between the two countries.

This decision is "not based on the content produced by these media" and the United States places "no restrictions" on what they publish, assured in a statement the secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

"For years, China has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation on Americans and other foreign journalists working in China," said Pompeo.

"We call on the Chinese government to immediately confirm its commitments to respect freedom of expression, including for members of the press," added the US diplomat, not to mention the expulsion of the three journalists on February 19.

The five Chinese media concerned by this decision are the China News agency, CGTN television, China Radio International radio and the China Daily and Le Quotidien du Peuple newspapers.

They had been classified by Washington as foreign diplomatic missions the day before the WSJ reporters were expelled and are now considered "propaganda" bodies.

They will be able to employ a maximum of 100 Chinese nationals from March 13, up from 160 currently. The United States does not explicitly expel these 60 workers who can in theory find other work, even if the majority should be forced to leave the country.

Xinhua (59) is the most affected by this decision, before CGTN (30), China Daily (9), China Radio International (2). The American distributor of the People's Daily does not seem to employ Chinese people.

- "Dangerous cycle" -

According to an official of the State Department, the decision does not apply to Chinese employees of other media, and the media controlled by Beijing will be able to hire employees of other nationalities.

Last year, Washington granted 425 journalist visas to Chinese nationals, including their families.

According to an American official, the government is also studying a limit on the duration of visas granted to Chinese members of the state media.

In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists denounced these visa restrictions, calling on China and the United States to "stop this dangerous cycle of reprisals that threatens the free flow of information in the two countries, in particular during a global health crisis "like the new coronavirus that has spread around the world.

The United States, "as a democracy with a strong constitutional guarantee of press freedom" must lead by example "rather than adopt Beijing's authoritarian strategy," said Steven Butler, CPJ coordinator for the Asia.

In February, the Chinese government withdrew their press cards from the three WSJ journalists in retaliation for a racist title of the American daily, a sanction condemned at the time by Washington.

On February 3, in the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, the newspaper had published a column entitled "China is the real sick man in Asia", a very offensive expression in this country.

The Club of Foreign Correspondents in China (FCCC) described the sanction as "unprecedented retaliation" and "an overt attempt by the Chinese authorities" to "intimidate foreign media".

In its annual report released on Monday, the FCCC accuses the Chinese authorities of using press cards - which act as a work permit renewable every year - as "a weapon" against the international media.

At least nine reporters have had to leave China before or when their press card expired since 2013, just after President Xi Jinping came to power, according to the FCCC.

CPJ said at least 48 journalists were imprisoned in China at the end of 2019.

© 2020 AFP