Published on February 20, 2020.
This article cites a Yomiuri Shimbun report on the U.S. State Department’s decision to treat five Chinese media organizations—Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio International, China Daily, and a company linked to the People’s Daily—as propaganda organs under the control of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
It also records China’s effective expulsion of three Beijing-based reporters from The Wall Street Journal, highlighting the reality of press control and retaliatory measures by the Chinese government.

February 20, 2020
On the 18th, the U.S. State Department… judged that they are under the control of the Chinese Communist Party regime and play the role of propaganda organs.
The following is from today’s Yomiuri Shimbun.
Xinhua and Others Are “Part of the Regime”
Five Chinese Media Companies Designated by the United States as “Propaganda Organs”
“Washington — Kazuhiko Makita”
On the 18th, the U.S. State Department announced that it would require five Chinese media companies, including the state-run Xinhua News Agency, to report information on their employees and owned assets in the United States.
It judged that they are under the control of the Chinese Communist Party regime and play the role of propaganda organs.
In the United States, embassies and consulates of each country are required to submit similar reports.
This measure imposes on the five companies obligations similar to those of foreign missions, and a senior State Department official told reporters on the 18th, “It is clear that they are part of the Communist Party regime and are not independent news organizations.”
In addition to Xinhua News Agency, the targets include “CGTN,” which handles the overseas broadcasts of China Central Television, the radio station China Radio International, the English-language newspaper China Daily, and a company affiliated with the Communist Party organ People’s Daily.
At a regular press conference on the 19th, Geng Shuang, deputy director of the Information Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, criticized the move, saying, “While the United States upholds freedom of the press, it is obstructing the normal activities of Chinese media,” and also suggested future countermeasures.
Three U.S. Newspaper Reporters Expelled from China
[Beijing — Seiichiro Takeuchi]
On the 19th, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that it had invalidated, as of the 19th, the press credentials of three Beijing-based reporters from the U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
This amounts in effect to an expulsion from the country.
On February 3, The Wall Street Journal published on its news site and elsewhere an opinion piece by an expert titled “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.”
The Chinese government regarded this as problematic, linking it to the derogatory expression “Sick Man of East Asia,” which was used against China in the late Qing dynasty.
On the 19th, Geng Shuang, deputy director of the Information Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that the public apology and punishment of those responsible, which China had demanded from the newspaper, had “still not been made,” and stated, “The Chinese people do not welcome discriminatory speech.”