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 ahead of the summit — looks to reverse the actions that began in February 2020 and which resulted in reporters from both nations being expelled and those that remained often being placed on rolling, short-term permits. The new agreement, if confirmed by the U.S. side and implemented as reported, will represent a modest improvement in relations between the world’s two biggest economies.
Officials at the State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports from Chinese state media.
According to the reports, the two nations will permit the journalists of the other country to freely depart and return, while complying with Covid-19 quarantine protocols, China Daily reported. 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 China.
