Chinese State Media Visit Trump, which shortens America’s voice

Chinese state media welcomed Donald Trump’s step to reduce state financing for information publications Voice of America And Radio Free Asia, which has long been reported by authoritarian regimes.

Deconor affects thousands of employees – some 1300 employees were put on a paid vacation in Voice of America (VOA) alone from the executive order on Friday.

Critics have called this step a failure for democracy, but the state -owned newspaper in Beijing Global Times announced VOA for “horrific results” in China’s reporting and stated that “now leaned off its own government as a dirty cloth.”

The White House defended this step, saying that “guarantees that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”

Trump’s sections focus on the US Global Media Agency (USAGM), which is supported by Congress and funded the affected news such as Voa, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe.

They have received recognition and international recognition for their reports in places where the press freedom is strongly reduced or not existed, from China and Cambodia to Russia and North Korea.

Although the authorities in some of these countries block broadcasts – for example, VOA, it is forbidden in China – people can listen to a short wave on radio or bypass restrictions through VPN.

RFA often reported about human rights repressions in Cambodia, whose former authoritarian leader Hong Saint perceives reduction as “a great contribution to the elimination of fake news”.

It was also among the first news reporting about the Chinese camps to transfer education in Xinjiang, where thousands of Uighur Muslims were allegedly detained. His report on North Korean restructuring and the alleged cover of the Chinese Communist Party received awards.

Voa, primarily radio -outbuildings, which also broadcast in Mandarin, was recognized last year for his podcast on rare protests in 2022 in China against Covid Lockdows.

But the Chinese Global Times welcomed the cuts, calling Voa “a false factory”.

“As more Americans begin to break through their information cocoons and see the real world and multidimensional China, the demonization stories that are distributed by VOA will eventually laugh,” the editorial office said on Monday.

Hu Sigin, who was a former editor -in -chief of the Global Times, wrote: “America’s voice was paralyzed! And there is also” Free Asia Radio “, which was the same vicious for China. This is such a great news.”

Such answers “would be easy to predict,” said Valda Chapter, a Voa journalist who lost work over the weekend. Previously, it worked at the BBC World Service.

“Of course, the elimination of Voa allows channels that are opposite accurate and balanced reporting to thrive,” she said BBC.

The National Press Club, the leading representative group for US journalists, said the order “undermines America’s long-standing commitment to the free and independent press”.

Founded during World War II, partially to combat Nazi propaganda, VOA reaches about 360 million a week in almost 50 languages. For many years he has been broadcast in China, North Korea, Communist Cuba and the former Soviet Union. It was also a useful tool for many Chinese to learn English.

Directed by Voa Michael Abramovitz said Trump’s order was hooked by Voa, while “America’s opponents such as Iran, China and Russia are immersing billions of dollars to create false stories for US discredit.”

Ms. Chapter, who is originally from Indonesia, but is based in Washington, first joined VOA in 2018, but her visa was stopped at the end of Trump’s first administration.

She returned in 2023 because she wanted to become part of an organization that “supports an objective, actual reporting that has no influence.”

The last cuts left her “a sense of betrayal of the idea I had about the freedom of the press (in the US).”

She is also concerned about her colleagues who can now be forced to return to hostile native countries, where they can be pursued for their journalism.

Meanwhile, The Czech Republic applied to the European Union To intervene so he can keep the radio free Europe. It reports in 27 languages ​​from 23 countries, which reaches more than 47 million every week.

The head of the RFA Bay Fang said in a statement that the organization plans to challenge the order. The expansion of financing to these outlets is “a reward for dictators and despots, including the Communist Party of China, which would not want anything better than their influence, remains without control in the information space,” he said.

RFA began in 1996 and reaches almost 60 million people weekly in China, Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. In China, it also broadcasts in minority languages ​​such as Tibetan and Uighur, except for English and Mandarin.

“(Trump’s order) not only deprives nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA reporting weekly, but also benefits America’s opponents at our expense,” Mr. Fang said.

While the Chinese state media noted the cuts, it is difficult to learn how the Chinese treat it when their Internet is strongly censored.

Outside China, those who listened to Voa and RFA for many years look disappointed and worried.

“Looking back at history, countless exiles, rebels, intellectuals and ordinary people are stored in the darkness of the voices of Voa and RFA, and saw the hope in fear of their reports,” writes a Chinese dissident who lives in Belgium.

“If the free world decides to remain silent, the dictator’s voice will become the only echo in the world.”