China expels WSJ reporter who wrote about Xi's cousin

The Chinese government has not renewed the press credentials of a foreign journalist who wrote an article about one of President Xi Jinping's cousins, the news organisation said Friday.

It amounts to the effective expulsion of Chun Han Wong, a Singaporean national who has worked for the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau since 2014.

"We can confirm that Chinese authorities have declined to renew Chun Han's press credentials. We continue to look into the matter," a Dow Jones spokesperson told AFP.

Wong - together with fellow journalist Philip Wen - published a story in July detailing how Australian law-enforcement and intelligence agencies were probing the activities of Ming Chai, one of Xi's cousins.

The article was part of a wider investigation into organised crime, money-laundering and alleged Chinese influence-peddling.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying rejected the allegations at the time the report was published, saying, "I don't know where these journalists go .