“I knew some of the people involved,” said Nury Vittachi, the prominent Hong Kong journalist and author, “and the allegations were just ridiculous.” He was referring to the US Justice Department’s demand, in late August, for five American subsidiaries of Sing Tao newspaper to register as foreign agents . The newspaper is Hong Kong’s oldest in the Chinese language. I subscribe to its Canadian edition, read it every day and find it quite innocuous. Maybe the American versions are different, full of Chinese state propaganda and run by Chinese intelligence operatives. You never know! In his YouTube clip on the channel Fridayeveryday, Vittachi refers to other incidents of Western state censorship and expulsion of Chinese journalists and academics. Strangely, he points out, you rarely hear about them. US, China will relax visa restrictions on each others’ journalists The United States had limited visas for Chinese journalists to 90 days and stopped renewing them from May last year. However, China and the US have agreed to ease restrictions on foreign journalists working in the two countries following the virtual summit between presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden last week. Last year, Australia cancelled the visas of Chen Hong , director of the Australian studies centre at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and Li Jianjun, also the director of the Australian studies centre at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Last June, agents of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) raided the home of the former head of Sydney’s Xinhua News Agency bureau, scared the living daylights out of his young daughter and confiscated electronic devices. The spy agency turned up nothing. They also investigated the Australian bureau chief of China News Service (CNS) Tao Shelan and the Sydney bureau chief for China Radio International (CRI), Li Dayong. If it were done in China, it would have been denounced as state intimidation and caused international outrage. In Britain, three Chinese journalists were expelled last year. In February, the licence of the Chinese state broadcaster CGTN to operate in the UK was revoked . Since they were all Chinese, they must be spies or criminals. They got what they deserved. But a reporter, Sue-Lin Wong, an Australian citizen, from the august British publication, The Economist , was denied visa renewal in Hong Kong last week . Now that’s big diplomatic and international news. What outrage! Thankfully, the Western mainstream news media again rises to the occasion and makes sure everyone knows about it.