That’s because on March 2 — a month after President Trump banned travel from China, and the day the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States passed 100 — the State Department announced a long-planned expulsion of about 60 employees of five Chinese state media outlets working in the United States.
The U.S. move gave the Communist Party the perfect excuse to get rid of pesky American journalists who had, over the previous two months, offered the world a window into China’s deadly mistakes in responding to the outbreak of the virus. On March 17, China slammed that window shut, announcing the expulsion of reporters for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and forcing the firing of Chinese nationals who worked for those outlets as well as for Voice of America and CNN.