Chinese state media hails Trump cuts to Voice of America

Chinese state media has welcomed Donald Trump’s move to cut public funding for news outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which have long reported on authoritarian regimes.

The decison affects thousands of employees – some 1,300 staff have been put on paid leave at Voice Of America (VOA) alone since Friday’s executive order.

Beijing’s state paper Global Times denounced VOA for its “appalling record history” in reporting on China and claimed it has” then been discarded by its own state like a dirty rag.”

The White House defended the action, saying it “assures that citizens are no longer the target of extreme propaganda.”

Trump’s cuts target the US Agency for Global Media ( USAGM ), which is funded by VOA, Radio Free Asia ( RFA ), and Radio Free Europe, among others.

From China and Cambodia to Russia and North Korea, they have received praise and global recognition for their reporting.

People can talk to them on radio television or bypass the restrictions by using VPNs, even though authorities in some of these nations block the broadcast (VOA, for example, is prohibited in China ).

RFA has frequently covered the Cambodian government’s assault on human rights, whose previous authoritarian ruler Hun Sen praised the reductions as a “big contribution to eliminating false news.”

It was also one of the initial news sources to cover the “re-education camps” that China’s system of “re-education tents” in Xinjiang, where thousands of Uyghur Muslims are alleged to have been detained, a command Beijing denies. Prizes have been awarded for its coverage of the Chinese Communist Party’s reported cover-up of Covid casualties and its monitoring on North Korean dissenters.

Invoices, a radio station generally, received recognition last year for its podcast about the unusual protests in China against Covid evacuations.

However, the cuts were welcomed by China’s Global Times, who called VOA a “lie mill.”

The demonizing narratives propagated by VOA will eventually turn into a laughing stock as more Americans begin to break free of their data nests and observe a real world and a multi-dimensional China, according to an editor published on Monday.

Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said,” Voice of America has been paralysed! Radio Free Asia, which has treated China similarly, has done the same. This is for fantastic information.

Such actions “would have been simple to predict,” according to VOA blogger Valdya Baraputri, who lost her job over the weekend. She worked for BBC World Service before.

” Eliminating Invoices, of course, allows programs that are the same of accurate and sensible reporting to thrive,” she told the BBC.

The purchase “undermines America’s long-standing devotion to a free and independent press,” according to the National Press Club, a leading official group for US editors.

Invoices, which was established during World War Two to store Nazi advertising, reaches 360 million people per week in nearly 50 languages. It has broadcasted in China, North Korea, socialist Cuba, and the former Soviet Union over the years. Some Chinese people have found it to be a useful resource for learning English.

Michael Abramowitz, director of VOA, claimed that Trump’s get had hampered left Invoices as” America’s enemies, like Iran, China, and Russia, are sinking billions of dollars into creating phony stories to undermine the United States.”

Ms. Baraputri, who is from Indonesia but resides in Washington, first joined VOA in 2018, but her immigration was voided at the conclusion of Trump’s first management.

She left in 2023 because she wanted to be a part of a group that “upholds honest, factual monitoring that is free from government impact.”

She is now feeling betrayed by the notion I had of press freedom [in the US] as a result of her new cuts.

She is also concerned about coworkers who may now be forced to travel to hostile countries where they could face persecution for their news.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has appealed to the European Union to intervene so it can keep Radio Free Europe going. It reports in 27 languages from 23 countries, reaching more than 47 million people every week.

RFA’s CEO, Bay Fang, stated in a statement that the organization intends to issue the purchase. The Chinese Communist Party and other rulers and despots, who would prefer to see their influence get unchecked in the information space, are “rewards,” he said, referring to funding these outlets as “rewards.”

RFA began in 1996 and has reached a regular audience of roughly 60 million in Laos, China, Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. In addition to English and Mandarin, it broadcasts in other language of majority, such as Tibetan and Uyghur.

Trump’s decree disenfranchises the roughly 60 million people who rely on RFA’s reporting to learn the truth, according to Mr. Fang, adding that it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense.

Given that their online is heavily censored, it’s difficult to understand how Taiwanese people feel about it.

People who have watched VOA and RFA over the years appear disappointed and concerned outside of China.

According to Du Wen, a Chinese dissident living in Belgium,” Looking back on record, many exiles, insurgents, intellectuals, and common people have persisted in the shadow because of the voices of Invoices and RFA, and have seen trust in fear because of their reports,” he wrote on X.

The dictator’s speech will become the sole sound in the world if the free earth chooses to remain silent.