Foreign Affairs

WaPo Posts Job Ad For China Bureau Chief Months After Beijing Announced Plans To Kick Out WaPo’s Journalists

No featured image available

The Washington Post posted a job advertisement recently for a China bureau news chief position based in Beijing nearly four months after Chinese officials announced plans to expel WaPo and other major American media.

“This is a challenging role at any time, but it is particularly so now, when China has imposed new restrictions on foreign journalists,” the ad notes before acknowledging that WaPo is one of several American media outlets that Beijing expelled in March. A timestamp on the outlet’s job placement website shows the ad was posted seven days ago.

“Despite continuing uncertainties and delays, we envision that the China bureau chief will eventually be based in Beijing once the necessary accreditation is granted,” the ad states.

The ad was published less than 5 months after China announced plans to expel American journalists who work for WaPo, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. China also demanded all three outlets, alongside Voice of America and Time magazine, provide Beijing officials with information about their operations, the NYT reported in March.

“This is a vacant role that we’re filling,” WaPo spokesperson Azhar Al Fadl Miranda told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  Miranda did not address whether the open Beijing bureau chief position is subject to Beijing’s decision.

China’s decision to oust the reporters is “entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S.,” according to a translated statement from a China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, the NYT reported in March.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted, “let’s play” after the Trump administration’s March 3 announcement to limit Chinese reporters working for specific state-run publications in the U.S. to 100.

China appears to be kicking out ALL American reporters for NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post. Including those in Hong Kong (no longer two systems eh?) HT @kemc and to quote @niubi: “holy shit” https://t.co/rlelpZlcVK

— Melissa Chan (@melissakchan) March 17, 2020

WaPo published an article on Aug. 4 explaining how “Young Chinese” see the Communist Party “as a ticket to a better future.”

The article’s author, Anna Fifield, praised China, noting that “Chinese who were complaining in February about the party’s coronavirus coverup reflect more positively on their experience now that they can see, through the American example, how much worse it could have been.”

China Daily, an English-language newspaper controlled by China, has paid more than $4.6 million to WaPo, the DCNF reported in June, citing public records. The Wall Street Journal has also received $6 million since November 2016 from China Daily, the report noted.