The Battle to Preserve Independent Journalism on China Amid U.S. Funding Cuts

In early 2020, shortly before the global outbreak of Covid-19, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reporter Jane Tang received a distressing message from a source in Wuhan: “They are following me. I’m too scared to move.” Tang had been investigating China’s efforts to suppress information about the emerging disease when she learned that Li Zehua, a former state media journalist pursuing the story independently, was under police surveillance. Not long after, Li was detained.

Li reached out to RFA, one of the few remaining outlets delivering uncensored, on-the-ground news from authoritarian regions in Asia. Founded in 1996 by the U.S. government in response to China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, RFA has reported from countries hostile to press freedom—including China, North Korea, and Myanmar—providing crucial coverage where independent journalism is otherwise suppressed.

RFA’s reporting is vital in China, where the Communist Party exerts absolute control over all media. The party leads the world in jailing journalists and employs sophisticated surveillance and censorship technology to monitor social media and punish dissenting voices, ensuring that only government-approved narratives reach the public.

Despite these obstacles, an Ipsos survey found that over 44 million Chinese users regularly bypass the Great Firewall to access RFA’s reporting in Mandarin, Cantonese, Uyghur, and Tibetan. Audiences seek out RFA for truthful coverage of topics such as natural disasters, protests, internal party disputes, and Taiwan’s democracy. The flow of information is reciprocal, with ordinary citizens providing invaluable tips that have sustained RFA’s reporting for nearly three decades.

However, RFA now faces a dire threat due to funding cuts under the Trump administration. On March 15, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funds RFA, abruptly canceled its $60 million grant. Consequently, RFA has been forced to terminate contracts with nearly all of its 463 field stringers and furlough over three-quarters of its 391 full-time staff. News production has plummeted, studios stand empty, and entire language services have ceased operations. Further layoffs are expected.

While the United States scales back support for independent media covering China, Beijing continues expanding its global propaganda efforts. China invests billions annually into a worldwide media influence campaign, broadcasting in around 50 languages and operating the China Global Television Network in more than 70 countries. Beyond official outlets, China distributes content to media in Africa, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia, and reportedly compensates foreign influencers to promote narratives such as tourism in Xinjiang, home to the oppressed Uyghur minority.

On Chinese social media, some celebrated RFA’s imminent shutdown. A former editor of a Chinese Communist Party-affiliated newspaper hailed the news as a victory. Allowing RFA to go dark at this critical moment effectively cedes the information battlefield to Beijing, strengthening President Xi Jinping’s grip on global narratives.

The survival of RFA aligns closely with U.S. strategic interests. The recent Annual Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence identifies China as the foremost threat to U.S. security, highlighting its use of fake online personas and AI-generated news anchors to suppress critical voices and sow discord about American leadership both domestically and internationally.

RFA’s frontline reporting has exposed some of the Chinese Communist Party’s most sensitive truths. When Hong Kong’s government forced independent outlets like Apple Daily and Stand News to close in 2021, RFA remained the last significant independent Cantonese media presence until threats forced it to shutter its bureau last year.

In 2022, RFA investigative journalists uncovered the existence of a secret Chinese police station in New York, revealing it as part of a growing global network of such facilities. Since 2017, RFA’s Uyghur reporters based in Washington, D.C., have documented mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang—coverage that helped prompt international recognition of these actions as genocide. In retaliation, Chinese authorities have reportedly imprisoned family members of at least 50 of RFA’s Uyghur journalists.

The sacrifices made by RFA reporters—who often sever family ties to protect loved ones, and who have faced imprisonment, torture, and exile—are immense. These courageous journalists risk everything to report truths under oppressive regimes and now face potential silence due to funding cuts from the very country that once inspired their mission through its commitment to press freedom.

This harsh irony fuels ongoing legal efforts to restore RFA’s funding. Recently, a U.S. District Court ordered the government to release the withheld funds, though that decision has been appealed, and no additional financing has yet been provided. Without RFA, authoritarian narratives may go unchallenged, and when another courageous source reaches out for help, there may be no one left to answer.