Radio Free Asia (RFA) has resumed broadcasts to audiences in China, its chief executive Bay Fang announced on Wednesday, after funding cuts under the Trump administration forced the US-funded outlet to largely cease operations last year.
In a LinkedIn post, Fang said the outlet had restarted broadcasting in Mandarin, Tibetan, and Uyghur, providing independent reporting on these regions in local languages. She attributed the resumption to private contracting with transmission services, though details were not provided. Fang added that rebuilding the network would require consistent funding approved by Congress.
The cuts came after Kari Lake, appointed by Donald Trump as acting chief executive of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), terminated RFA's grants, citing waste and anti-Trump bias. Critics said the move ceded ground to China. A bipartisan spending bill signed by Trump in February allocated $653 million for USAGM, down from $867 million in previous years but significantly more than the $153 million Trump had requested to shut down the agency.
China's embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu declined to comment on US domestic policy but accused RFA of spreading falsehoods and having an anti-China bias. Rights activists, however, said RFA has highlighted abuses in authoritarian countries, including China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
RFA spokesperson Rohit Mahajan said on Friday that the outlet had contracted with private companies to broadcast to Tibet, North Korea, and Myanmar. Mandarin audio content is currently online-only, with plans to resume regular airwave broadcasts soon. Tibetan, Uyghur, Korean, and Burmese programming airs over short and medium-wave frequencies, though satellite transmissions via USAGM have not yet resumed.
