Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Wednesday announced it will suspend operations after losing government funding under President Donald Trump’s administration.
RFA is a US-funded broadcaster created nearly 30 years ago to provide independent news in countries with state-controlled media, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The Washington-based network said it will cease all news production on Friday — the first halt since it went on air in 1996 — following months of financial strain caused by sweeping budget cuts and a prolonged federal shutdown.
RFA had already laid off or furloughed more than 90 percent of its employees and drastically reduced output after Trump’s administration in March slashed funding for government-supported media outlets.
“Our strategy all along has been to protect our people for as long as possible,” said Bay Fang, RFA president and CEO. She told AFP that remaining funds will be used for staff severance packages.
Fang said the broadcaster is exploring other revenue streams to restart operations. “We’re trying to preserve what we would need to start back up,” she said. “I do feel like it’s a fight against the clock. We have to get this funding as quickly as possible.”
Blow to press freedom in Asia
The closure of RFA — long viewed by Beijing as a critic of its human rights record — comes as Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on an Asia trip aimed at improving ties between Washington and Beijing.
Sophie Richardson, co-executive director of the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, warned that the shutdown “is a gift to dictators like Xi Jinping,” especially “at a time when Beijing has worked quite assiduously to control what stories can and can’t get told the country.”
She added, “I think in the not too distant future we’ll see more clearly whether there are topics that become much harder to write about — or aren’t written about anymore — because we aren’t able to verify or confirm things or research trends.”
Nicholas Burns, who served as US ambassador to China under former president Joe Biden, called the move a “major mistake,” writing on X that it “will prevent us from telling the truth to the Chinese people and countering Beijing’s propaganda.”
From Cold War legacy to silence
Founded in 1996, RFA was modeled after Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcast inside the Soviet bloc during the Cold War and continues to operate with the backing of several European governments.
Voice of America, which operates directly under the US government, also stopped functioning following Trump’s funding cuts. Its English-language website still features a headline from March about lawmakers averting a government shutdown, AFP reported.
RFA has played a key role in exposing human rights abuses in Asia, particularly in China’s Xinjiang region, where it was one of the few outlets offering news in the Uyghur language not controlled by Beijing.
It was also at the forefront of reporting on the plight of young people in Myanmar after the 2021 military coup — coverage that earned it two Edward R. Murrow Awards this year.
Despite layoffs, RFA continued reporting during major crises. RFA spokesman Rohit Mahajan recalled that after the broadcaster cut its Myanmar stringers, a devastating earthquake hit the country.
“We saw our numbers really skyrocket in terms of social media engagement,” he said.
“We’re able to be that voice, that news, in that language, reporting on things like the weather and not just political insurrection or political dealings,” Mahajan added.
RFA said that China has already taken over some of its transmission frequencies and expanded its own broadcasts in Uyghur and Tibetan — a development that underscores Beijing’s tightening control over regional narratives and the growing vacuum for independent journalism.
