China to declare curbs on US media outlets, says Global Times editor Hu Xijin

China will announce reciprocal curbs on U.S. media outlets in the country, the editor in chief of the Global Times newspaper said on Twitter on Wednesday. Hu Xijin gave no details of the measures. His paper is published by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party.

The comment comes after the United States said in June it would start treating another four major Chinese media outlets as foreign embassies, following similar moves on other outlets earlier in the year, in a move likely to further sour fraught ties between the world's top two economies.

The United States and China have been engaged in a series of retaliatory actions involving journalists in recent months, amid increasing tensions over the coronavirus pandemic and other issues. In May, the U.S. also limited visas for Chinese reporters to a 90-day period with the option for extension. Such visas were typically open-ended.

In March, China expelled American journalists from three U.S. newspapers, after Washington slashed the number of journalists permitted to work in the United States at four major Chinese state-owned media outlets.

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