As Tensions Between China And The US Thicken; News Outlets Become Pawns In “Cold War”

China has warned the United States on Tuesday that there will be a retaliation against new US restrictions on Chinese state media, according to AFP.

This development further escalates tensions between the two world powers, with each other’s media outlets serving as pawns caught in the middle.

According to AFP, the US State Department on Monday announced it was reclassifying four organisations — China Central Television, China News Service, the People’s Daily and the Global Times — as foreign missions rather than media outlets in the United States, adding to five others designated in February.

China, on it’s part had already expelled more than a dozen American journalists.

The five state news outlets earlier designated as foreign missions according to AFP, are Xinhua news agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International and the US distributors of the People’s Daily and English-language China Daily.

In retaliation for the slashing of Chinese employees at these News outlets in the United States, Beijing hit back in March by expelling US citizens working for three major newspapers — The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

On Tuesday Beijing condemned the US move as part of an ongoing Cold War, saying the action is “bare-faced political suppression of Chinese media” that “further exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called freedom of speech and press which the US likes to flaunt”.

“We strongly urge the US to reject this Cold War mindset and ideological bias… otherwise China will have no choice but to make an appropriate response,” said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a routine briefing– According To AFP.

All nine Chinese state-run news organisations will be required to report details of their US-based staff and real estate transactions to the State Department. Their news reporting will not be restricted, officials said.