WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered four Chinese state-owned fake news media outlets to trim their Chinese staff in the U.S. by about 40 percent.
Bloomberg reports that measures are seen as a response to Beijing's restrictions on American reporters including the booting of three Wall Street Journal writers last month.
According to two State Department officials talking to Bloomberg, starting on March 13, the four fake outlets will be allowed to have a combined 100 Chinese citizens in the U.S., down from around 160 now.
Too bad that's still 100 too many Chinese spies for each Chinese state speakerbox.
The pretend news outlets affected are Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International and China Daily Distribution Corp.
A fifth, Hai Tian Development USA, is also included in the cap, but they only have two Chinese employees on its U.S. payroll.
So who are all these sellout Americans working for Hai Tian?
According to another senior administration official, the U.S. also plans to limit how long Chinese citizens are allowed to stay in the country on journalist visas.
That would match a Chinese requirement restricting foreign reporters to as little as 30 days before they must seek an extension.
