Why China is Picking on American Journalists

At a daily press briefing on Feb. 19, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that Beijing would expel three Wall Street Journal reporters in retaliation for an opinion piece the paper had published about the frailty of the Chinese system. Entitled “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia” and written by columnist and Bard College professor Walter Russell Mead, the article engendered controversy for its headline, which played on the coronavirus epidemic and a pejorative phrase often applied to a shambolic China in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese declared, had refused to apologize, forcing them to act to defend their national honor. “Regrettably, what the WSJ has done so far is nothing but parrying and dodging its responsibility,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. “The Chinese people do not welcome those media that speak racially discriminatory language and maliciously slander and attack China.”