Washington, May 30: The Trump administration has revoked the visa of a Chinese national working for the state news agency Xinhua in the United States, in an apparent reciprocal act to Beijing’s decision to expel a New York Times reporter.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed the visa had been revoked. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter involves visa privacy. A State Department official confirmed there was a plan to revoke the visa.
The tit-for-tat move by the Trump administration has followed the expulsion by Beijing of Vivian Wang, a China correspondent for The New York Times, apparently over the appearance of the Taiwanese leader in a DealBook event in which Wang had no role. It was a rare occasion of the US government directly retaliating against Beijing’s expulsion of American journalists.
The Times, which first reported the reciprocal move by the Trump administration, said the newspaper does not ask governments to revoke media credentials or otherwise interfere with the work of any journalist.
On Friday, the paper issued a statement calling for Wang to be reinstated as a credentialed journalist in China and urging both governments to “reverse this deterioration in journalist access.”
“The Chinese government’s decision to expel Vivian Wang is wrong,” Joseph Kahn, the paper’s executive editor, said in a statement published on the Times’ corporate website. “Her expulsion will make it even harder for our global audience to get accurate, independent and in-depth reporting about the world’s second largest economy at a critical time.” The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (AP)
