Chinese language state media has reacted gleefully to the Trump administration’s resolution to slash authorities funding to media organisations resembling Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA).
The International Occasions, a day by day English-language tabloid and Chinese language Communist social gathering mouthpiece, celebrated the cuts to the US Company for International Media (USAGM), which oversees broadcasters resembling VOA and RFA.
“On the subject of China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling observe document,” the International Occasions mentioned in an editorial on Monday.
“From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes within the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to selling the declare of China’s ‘overcapacity’, virtually each malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints throughout it,” the editorial mentioned.
The Beijing Day by day, a newspaper run by the Chinese language Communist social gathering (CCP), additionally printed a column commending the cuts.
The schadenfreude comes after US president Donald Trump signed an order gutting USAGM and instructing it to scale back its operations to the naked minimal mandated by the regulation. He accused VOA of being “radical” and “anti-Trump”.
The order would “guarantee taxpayers are now not on the hook for radical propaganda” the White Home mentioned in an announcement. USAGM employed roughly 3,500 individuals and had an $886m price range in 2024, in line with the company’s newest report back to Congress.
The try to shut down RFA was “a reward to dictators and despots”, its president, Bay Fang, mentioned, “together with the Chinese language Communist social gathering, who would love nothing higher than to have their affect go unchecked within the info house.
“Right now’s discover not solely disenfranchises the practically 60 million individuals who flip to RFA’s reporting on a weekly foundation to be taught the reality, nevertheless it additionally advantages America’s adversaries at our personal expense.”
RFA’s union mentioned in an announcement that the transfer would “hand a victory to the Chinese language Communist social gathering, which harbors a specific disdain at no cost media and fact” and would “embolden Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian regime in Pyongyang, the place info management reaches unprecedented ranges”.
The union mentioned it intends to problem the choice, including {that a} termination of its service would “betray the very ideas upon which America stands”.
At VOA, which was arrange through the second world battle to counter Nazi propaganda, Trump’s resolution has seen virtually 1,300 workers positioned on administrative go away, in line with VOA director Mike Abramowitz.
Veteran VOA correspondent Brian Padden mentioned it was “notably galling” that Elon Musk had accused VOA of anti-American propaganda to justify the shutdown.
“In the midst of my reporting, I’ve been shot at, roughed up, and even practically decapitated by an exploding helicopter in japanese Ukraine. In 2014, I used to be harassed by pro-Russian activists or militants in Ukraine who accused me and my VOA TV crew of being brokers of pro-American propaganda,” he mentioned in a social media publish.
“Each Musk and the Russian militants are mistaken. VOA doesn’t do propaganda. VOA reviews the information, which incorporates the attitude of each proponents and critics of the president.”
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White Home bureau chief, mentioned in an announcement on social media: “I have no idea a single VOA journalist who is just not fiercely protecting of our constitution and the editorial independence it gives, particularly these of us born in international locations the place there is no such thing as a such idea.”
South-east Asia continues to be reeling from cuts to USAid, which had offered funding to a variety of media organisations, together with native journalists masking atrocities in war-torn Myanmar.
Former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, an authoritarian who handed energy to his son in 2023, additionally weighed in publicly to reward the Trump administration resolution, describing the cuts as a “main contribution to eliminating faux information, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos around the globe”.
On the bottom in Phnom Penh, not all Cambodian journalists agree.
Solar Narin, who has labored as a contractor for VOA in Cambodia for eight years, described the choice as “darkish time for us and journalism in Cambodia”.
“I really feel hopeless,” he mentioned. “The scenario of our press has been getting worse and worse for the reason that shutdown of some unbiased media retailers. VOA is now the one long-term outlet that dares to broadcast essential info to the general public. So individuals haven’t any extra decisions.”
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