China vows necessary response to U.S. crackdown on Chinese media

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will make a necessary response to the action of the United States in designating Chinese media firms as foreign missions, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday, but stopped short of revealing what the move would be.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the previous day that the State Department was designating the U.S. operations of six more China-based media companies as foreign missions, a move he said aimed at countering communist propaganda.

The move amounts to "political oppression" and comes from a Cold War mentality, however, Zhao Lijian told a regular news conference in the Chinese capital.

"China will make a legitimate and necessary response," he said, urging the United States to change its decision.

The State Department has previously required Chinese media outlets to register as foreign missions and said in March it was cutting the number of journalists allowed to work at U.S. offices of major Chinese media to 100 from 160.

In response, China expelled about a dozen American correspondents with the New York Times, News Corp's Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley; Editing by John Stonestreet and Clarence Fernandez)