Taiwan Foreign Minister invites U.S. scribes expelled by China

Beijing had revoked their accreditations earlier in March

March 28, 2020 10:13 pm | Updated 10:13 pm IST - Taipei

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu extended a personal invitation on Saturday for three major U.S. newspapers to station on the island their China-based journalists whose expulsion Beijing has announced.

China said on March 18 it was revoking the press accreditations of all American journalists in the China bureaus of The New York Times , Wall Street Journal and Washington Post , which were due to expire at the end of 2020. Beijing also said those affected would not be allowed to work as journalists in the Chinese-run city of Hong Kong. In the past, foreign journalists kicked out of, or barred from, mainland China were allowed to work in Hong Kong. “As @nytimes, @WSJ & @washingtonpost face intensifying hostility in China, I'd like to welcome you to be stationed in Taiwan — a country that is a beacon of freedom & democracy,” Mr. Wu wrote on Twitter. “Yes! You’ll find people here greeting you with open arms & lots of genuine smiles.”

Taiwan is home to only a small number of permanent foreign correspondents, and none of the three newspapers has a full-time presence on the island currently.

While Chinese-claimed Taiwan is a freewheeling democracy with freedom of expression, it has stepped up controls to help prevent the spread of the virus, and generally only foreigners holding residence permits are currently allowed entry.

China has laid the blame for the situation with the three newspapers at Washington’s door, for first restricting the number of Chinese media in the U.S. Last month, Washington demanded journalists from Chinese state media be registered as staff of diplomatic missions, saying it was a response to the growing crackdown on independent reporting in China.

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