OPINION:
Far be it for the Chinese Communist Party to understand the sanctified split between news and opinion that characterizes most American newspapers, including this one. At most newspapers, reporters strive to report objectively; opinion writers like ourselves are granted a bit more leeway to editorialize. (Some readers may not notice this spirit of objective news is not always rigorously upheld by the likes of The New York Times.) Ideally, news and opinion are wholly independent departments, staffed by discrete groups of writers and editors.
Nevertheless, even though they lack the understanding of this exquisite balance, Beijing’s move to expel three Wall Street Journal reporters from China this week as retaliation for an opinion piece the newspaper published strikes as capricious, misguided and chilling. The CCP took umbrage at a recent opinion piece in the Journal that labeled China the “sick man of Asia,” an obvious allusion to the 19th century when the flailing Ottoman Empire was called the “sick man of Europe.” Their retaliation? Telling three reporters from the Beijing bureau, including the deputy bureau chief, to pack up and vacate the country within five days, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with the supposedly offensive opinion column.
Of course, given that Beijing is currently effectively on lockdown given the spread of the mysterious coronavirus, leaving the country at the moment may not seem like much of a punishment. But the ouster is still a chilling sign of China’s war on freedom and the safe conveyance of information.
China is growing less free and more repressive. That’s not only a tragedy for U.S. readers who will now know even less about what is occurring in the vitally important country, but especially for the Chinese people, who grow more oppressed by the day.
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