Beijing on Tuesday said media outlets facing the axe by US President Donald Trump had a “notorious” history of reporting on China, as Cambodia’s autocratic former leader hailed the move for “combating fake news”.
Trump signed an order last week freezing Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio Free Europe and other outlets as part of his sweeping cuts to federal government spending.
RFA was created to provide reporting to China, North Korea and other countries in the region with heavily restricted press.
It has reported extensively in recent years on issues highly sensitive to Beijing authorities and other autocratic leaders in Asia.
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Asked about Trump’s decision during a daily news briefing, China’s foreign ministry said it did not comment on domestic policies of the US government.
But, said spokeswoman Mao Ning: “I think it is no secret that some of the US media you mentioned have a notorious track record in reporting on China.”
In an editorial, state-backed nationalist tabloid Global Times went further — describing Voice of America as a “lie factory”.
“The so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag,” it said.
“The demonising narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughingstock of the times,” it added.
China has frequently criticised Western media reporting on the country as “biased” and it heavily restricts the operations of domestic news outlets.
Thorny topics covered by RFA and its fellow outlets included China’s alleged large-scale human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as the crackdown on democratic activists in Hong Kong.
Notably, Radio Free Asia’s reporting is published in a wide range of languages spoken in China, including Tibetan and Uyghur as well as Mandarin and Cantonese.
Related news stories are heavily censored in China’s domestic media environment — and foreign reports on the subjects are blocked online.
The outlets had also long been critical of the influential former leader of Cambodia Hun Sen.
He welcomed the move to cut their funding, praising Trump for “his courage to lead the world in combating fake news, starting with news outlets funded by the US government”.
Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia with an iron fist for nearly four decades and shut down multiple independent media outlets, has been the subject of critical reporting by VOA and Radio Free Asia.
In 2020, Beijing ordered several US media outlets — including VOA — to declare in writing their staff, finances, operations and real estate in China.
The decree was part of a media row between Washington and Beijing that saw more than a dozen journalists working for US media expelled from China.
