China and the U.S. agreed to ease visa restrictions imposed during the Trump administration on each other’s journalists, Chinese state media reported, a development that would remove one of the irritants in the relationship between the nations.
After the U.S. begins to issue one-year multiple entry visas for Chinese journalists, China will reciprocate, outlets including China Daily reported Tuesday, hours after Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden spoke via video conference.
The agreement — which the outlets say was reached before the summit — looks to reverse the actions that began in February 2020 and resulted in reporters from both nations being expelled and those that remained often being placed on rolling, short-term permits. The new agreement would represent a modest improvement in relations between the world’s two biggest economies.
A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday that China had agreed to issue visas to a group of American reporters, and would allow U.S journalists presently in the country to leave and return at will, which has not been the case. The spokesperson added that the U.S. would reciprocate.
Previously, U.S. citizens who worked for American media outlets in China, including at Bloomberg News, were at risk of having their visas canceled if they left the country.
