US ends 5 cultural programs with China in further escalation

The departing Trump administration has ended five cultural-exchange programmes with China that it says were being used for Chinese propaganda and had no benefit to the United States.
The terminations follow new visa restrictions announced by Washington limiting stays in the US by members of China’s Communist Party and signal further erosion in relations with Beijing in the final weeks of President Donald Trump’s time in office.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the exchange programmes he ended were fully paid for and operated by the Chinese government “as soft power propaganda tools.”
They provided “carefully curated access to Chinese Communist Party officials, not to the Chinese people, who do not enjoy freedoms of speech and assembly,” he said in a statement late Friday.