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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, June 16, 2020

Wall Street Journalist Josh Chin

2020 was going to be a good year for Josh Chin.  He had just become Deputy Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal’s Beijing Bureau, had been awarded a prestigious New America fellowship, and received the Gerald Loeb Award for international reporting.  His was a career on the rise; a long way from his start as a freelancer.

On February 19, 2020, Chin, in his new role as Deputy Bureau Chief, sat in a waiting room at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Chin’s boss was on the other side of a closed door, meeting with Ministry officials to discuss whether the Ministry would delay renewing one of their staffer’s soon-to-be-expired journalist visa.  Two weeks prior, The Journal had published an op-ed entitled “China the Real Sick Man of Asia” and the Ministry immediately responded, lambasting the author for his arrogance, prejudice and ignorance.  Chin and his boss were there to convince Ministry officials not to retaliate against their colleague.

When his boss emerged, Chin waited to hear his colleague’s fate: renewed credentials or delayed visa.  Neither his boss told him.  Instead, the Ministry had decided to expel Chin and another colleague along with the staffer.  Even though Chin’s journalist visa was still valid, he had five days to pack up his life of 13 years and get out.

Since 2012, the Chinese government has used its power over the journalist visa process to censor foreign news outlets.  For the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party, the media exists to serve the Party.  “[L]ove the party, protect the party, and closely align [] with the party. . . .” President Xi Jinping told the government-run People’s Daily during a visit to their offices in 2016.  To keep foreign journalists in line, the Chinese government has used harassment, surveillance, visa delays and visa downgrades according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

But for the United States, the press is viewed as central to our democracy, its freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1785.  Because of this bedrock principle, the U.S. government has been hesitant to retaliate against Chinese journalists in response to the Chinese government’s provocations.  But enter Donald Trump, a president who constantly attacks the press.  For Trump, rolling back press Chinese journalists’ freedoms was not a hard choice.  Instead, it corresponded perfectly with his effort to undermine the press, an institution crucial to our democracy.

President Richard Nixon, not a fan of the press

Trump is not the first president hostile to the press.  John Adams signed into law the Sedition Act of 1798 which criminalized the publication of “false, scandalous or malicious writing” about the federal government.  Richard Nixon privately maintained an “enemies list” and illegally surveilled certain reporters.  The Obama Administration prosecuted 11 government employees and contractors for revealing classified information to the press.  But Trump’s treatment of the press is different and more nefarious to our democracy.  It’s “a systematic effort to de-legitimize the news media as a check on government power,” University of Georgia media law professor Johnathan Peters told the Committee to Protect Journalists last month.

The day Chin was expelled from China, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the Chinese government’s actions, stating that “[m]ature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions. The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech.”  But on March 2, 2020, the State Department limited the number of journalist visas issued to Chinese state-run outlets to 100, effectively expelling 60 Chinese reporters.  The Chinese government responded with more severe sanctions: the expulsion of U.S. citizens employed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.  Not long after, the Trump Administration issued its most punitive sanction yet: downgrading every Chinese journalist’s visa to a three-month term from a previous unlimited time period, regardless of whether they work for a Chinese, state-run news outlet or The New York Times.   The Chinese government has yet to respond.  But expect it to similarly relegate U.S. journalists to a three-month visa or expel all U.S. journalists from China.

Two expelled Wall Street Journal Reporters – Philip Wen (L) and Josh Chin (R) – on their way out of China. Photo Courtesy of Greg Baker / AFP

The Trump Administration’s tit-for-tat diplomacy is a far cry from Pompeo’s “correct response.”  Instead, it mimics Beijing’s tactics: restricting speech through the journalist visa process.  The United States, once the international champion of freedom of the press, is following the lead of an authoritarian, one-party state.  But this should not be a surprise.  The Trump Administration’s treatment of the domestic press the past three years reflects its authoritarian bent.  Trump repeatedly tweets “fake news” about news stories he doesn’t like and has called the U.S. media “the enemy of the people.”  The White House revoked CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials after Trump told him he was a “rude, terrible person.”  Trump’s re-election campaign has sued three major media organizations for libel in cases considered “long shots.”  These are all pages from Beijing’s playbook, a playbook where the media is subservient to the ruling party.

Some of Chin’s last articles from China were on the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan.  His reporting from early February, as well as that of his fellow, expelled colleagues, exposed the pandemic nature of COVID-19: hospitals overrun with patients; front-line medical workers dying of the virus; mortuaries unable to process the massive number of dead.  Their reporting foreshadowed what we would see on our shores a few months later.  Even with the Chinese government hiding early facts about the novel coronavirus, U.S. reporters were able to find – and report – the truth.  But this truth is an impediment to the Trump Administration’s narrative that China’s lack of transparency prevented it from recognizing the severity of COVID-19.  So while the Trump Administration publicly laments the Chinese government’s restrictions on U.S. reporters, it has to know that its retaliatory tactics means that there will be even less U.S. reporters in China.  But this may be precisely what it wants.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, June 1, 2020

This Thursday marks the 31^st anniversary of the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on the peaceful protests at Tiananmen Square.  On the night of June 3 and into the early morning hours of June 4, 1989, tanks rolled in to the streets of Beijing and the Chinese government did the unthinkable: it opened fire on its own people, killing hundreds if not thousands of unarmed civilians in the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square.  That violent crackdown marked the end of student-led, peaceful protests in the Square, protests that sought to bring reform to China.

To mark this anniversary, I was going to write a post on where China is today and its new attempts to squelch any dissent, protest, or rule of law in one of the last areas in China that permits freedom of speech: Hong Kong.  But as I sit here in New York City, on a picture-perfect spring afternoon, searching for photos of the tanks rolling into the Tiananmen Square area to accompany the blog post, my twitter feed is full of pictures of U.S. military trucks invading some of America’s largest cities to “put down” peaceful – and some less peaceful – protests.  These protests erupted soon after videos emerged of the brutal death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck until Floyd stopped breathing. For eight minutes and 46 seconds, and even after Floyd’s handcuffed body went limp, the officer never stopped his pressure on Floyd’s neck. Three other police officers stood there and watched.

As protests erupt in the United States, our initial response is violence.  Tear gas and pepper spray fill the streets of many U.S. cities with the police resorting to heavy-handed tactics.  Peaceful protesters are hit with rubber bullets.  There is little attempt by the police to de-escalate.  Journalists find themselves the targets of police.  The government blames “antifa” forces for instigating the protests.  These  scenes conjure up images of last year’s protests in Hong Kong, where violent police tactics were used against unarmed protesters.  And with some Hong Kong protesters’ frustrations growing, they too sought to vandalize stores and destroy property.  The Chinese government blames “foreign forces” for riling up the people. The one difference: President Xi Jinping didn’t tweet that the Hong Kong police should shoot the protesters; that would be too reminiscent of 1989.  But, in the United States, President Donald Trump did tweet such sentiments. And mere days from the 31^st anniversary of the Chinese government unleashing its military to massacre unarmed civilians, Trump has threatened to do the same.

I know that substantively comparing the United States and China is inappropriate.  The police officer who killed Floyd has been charged with third degree murder and will be prosecuted at a public trial that will be covered by the press.  The officer’s fate will be determined by an independent judicial system.  These things would never happen in China, and increasing less so in Hong Kong.  And there are some police officers and national guard members showing restraint and solidarity with the protesters; those who are not will be held accountable.  Again, something that would not happen in China and isn’t happening in Hong Kong.  But the images from the United States this week, and the sentiments from the U.S. president, are eerily similar to images of Beijing in 1989 and Hong Kong last summer.  It’s too much to ignore.   And I fear that like the protesters in 1989 who sought a better society for China, the protesters this weekend in the United States will confront a government that prevents them from realizing a better society for us: one that is truly equal and  where black lives matter.

Every year, I dedicate this post to those killed on June 4^th, 1989.  But as I write this, I wonder, how many of the men and women who lost their lives in Beijing 31 years ago used their last breathes to cry out for their mothers, just like George Floyd did last week on the streets of Minneapolis.  And while we still must remember June 4^th, the lives lost and the dreams crushed, this year, I would like to dedicate this post to George Floyd.  And to Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Eric Gardener, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin and the countless other African Americans killed by the police in the United States (or people who thought they were the police).  We need to say their names.  We must never forget.  For them, we must continue to build a better society with freedom, equality and dignity for all.