Dear Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi,

You gave an important speech in Beijing on Thursday in which you attempted to halt the slide in U.S.-China relations. You declared that China did not want to see its relationship with the United States descend into a new Cold War. You declared that China was willing to “activate and open all the channels of dialogue” with the United States. You also noted that “slandering others does not clear one’s own name, and finger-pointing cannot resolve any problems.”

I — and I’m sure many other China watchers in the United States — heartily agree and, to that end, permit me a modest proposal: let’s stop the war that the United States and China are engaged in over the media.

Let’s agree that tit-for-tat expulsions and other limits imposed by either side have unnecessarily reduced the numbers of American correspondents in China and Chinese correspondents in the United States. This drop could damage the ability of people in both countries, including investors, diplomats, soldiers and average citizens, to understand one another. As you noted in your speech, “only communication can dispel falsehoods.”

With that in mind, Foreign Minister Wang, isn’t it time for a truce?

One step would be to acknowledge that while no one wants to reprise the Cold War, some of the reciprocal arrangements worked out between Moscow and Washington are worth considering. Back in the day, the United States and the Soviet Union followed a strict quota system when it came to the media. Russia could send the same number of reporters to the United States as the United States could send to Russia. So, the Soviet newspaper Pravda got two slots in the United States, for example, while the New York Times got two in the U.S.S.R.

Obviously, today the media ecosystem is bigger and more complex than the one between Russia and the United States during the Cold War. The best guess of State Department officials is that there are currently about 150 reporters from China in the United States, even after the Trump administration moved in March to limit to 100 the number of Chinese nationals who could work for five of Beijing’s state-run news organizations in the United States. And there are an estimated 80 American correspondents based in China, even after China responded to the Trump administration’s move by expelling every American correspondent (save one) from the China bureaus of The Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The solution could be establishing a clear-cut quota system of, say, 150 reporters on each side. That would meet the Trump administration’s goal of a more reciprocal relationship with Beijing, while also aligning with China’s mission of maintaining its media operations in America. On the U.S. side, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) or a separate media-related organization could dole out the slots to interested parties so that the U.S. government is not involved.

Chinese authorities could allocate their quota as they see fit. Visas should be issued on at least a yearly basis, with an added proviso to permit another quota of reporters — such as magazine writers and documentary crews, — on short-term visas to operate in the countries.

But Foreign Minister Wang, it’s still an open question whether anyone in the Chinese government is really interested in halting the media war or establishing a balanced relationship with the United States when it comes to the media. I’m told that State Department officials have indicated to their Chinese counterparts that the U.S. government is interested in discussing the media issue in detail but, so far, no Chinese agency, including your ministry, appears interested in engaging.

Many of us in the media believe that the Chinese government fears U.S. reporters because their scoops — such as those probing the wealth of high-ranking Communist Party members — have rocked the foundations of party power. Tit-for-tat expulsions means the United States loses and maybe, Minister Wang, your government is comfortable with that.

However, another view notes that the Chinese government has invested billions of dollars in a so-called Grand External Propaganda Campaign, according to a report published by the Hoover Institution, which involves ramping up China Global Television, Xinhua (now the biggest news agency in the world), China Daily and other outlets. The prospect of completely losing a foothold in the United States might animate Chinese officials to consider a deal.

Ultimately, Minister Wang, the issue of media access is a trade issue. How can Chinese companies expect to tap into U.S. financial markets, for example, if they don’t allow American reporters to write from China about those Chinese companies? The recent scandal involving Luckin Coffee — which raised some $645 million on Wall Street in 2019 only to implode after it disclosed that it had fabricated most of its 2019 revenue — underscores the need for on-the-ground reporting in China.

More broadly, why should China Global Television be allowed to reach more than 30 million households in the United States, for example, if the New York Times’s website remains blocked by censors in Beijing? If Chinese state-run and private companies can invest in or subsidize media properties in the United States, as they have done, why can’t U.S. firms do the same in China?

At the center of all this is the word “reciprocity.” Chinese officials have told me that they define reciprocity to mean that Chinese government media outlets should be able to benefit from the openness of the American system while their U.S. counterparts must tolerate restrictions imposed by Beijing. That’s reciprocal in Beijing’s view. That’s a perversion of the word.

Still, that can be discussed in depth after we’ve called a truce. And to get there, a simple quota system for media access is a good start.

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