Washington's hypocrisy laid bare in its attack on press freedom: China Daily editorial

It is no wonder that the Foreign Ministry has called on the United States to change its course, as it has been hijacked by the Cold War thinking and ideological prejudice of the current US administration. It seeks to portray anything Chinese as an agency of malevolence.

Having previously vowed to close down all Confucius Institutes in the US this year and to look into the operations of Chinese think tanks in the country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that the State Department was designating the US operations of six more China-based media companies as foreign missions, bringing the number of Chinese media outlets designated as such this year to 15.

The moves targeting all these organizations that work to enhance Americans' understanding of China are aimed at recalling the red-under-the-bed sentiment that prevailed in the US during the Cold War, especially during the McCarthy era, and is part of the US' wider campaign to contain China.

At a news conference to announce the plan, Pompeo also said the US was launching a dialogue on China with the European Union on Friday, and that on Sunday he would begin a trip to India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia during which he expects to discuss how "free nations can work together to thwart threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party".

China hit back in both February and June when the US designated the earlier batches of Chinese media outlets as foreign missions, and it is sure to do so this time.

The US has more media outlets operating in China than China has in the US, and it is no secret that some of them have long been engaging in acts of disrepute. For instance, their ugly performance during the unrest in Hong Kong since June last year has revealed their lack of journalistic ethics and politicized agendas, which have made them accomplices of the US administration's overt interference in China's internal affairs.

That being said, Beijing has every reason to pick out the few bad apples from the basket, and the US State Department's move on Wednesday creates the opportunity for Beijing to take overdue moves to protect its social stability and national security.

As an important channel of people-to-people exchanges, media outlets play irreplaceable roles in promoting understanding between different countries, something that is particularly important for the US and China at this time.

Without clear and rational thinking on its China policy, and driven by the narrow ends of a small fraction of politicians, the US administration is dismantling the structure of Sino-US relations that was painstakingly built by generations of leaders and the two peoples. But those in the US who are trying to shake the edifice apart should be aware that the US is under that dome as well.