Radio Free Asia

Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a United States government–funded, nonprofit international broadcasting corporation based in Washington, D.C. that broadcasts and publishes online news, information and commentary to readers and listeners in Asia. Its stated mission is "to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press."[4]

Radio Free Asia
AbbreviationRFA
Formation1951
Type501(c)(3) organization
52-1968145
PurposeBroadcast Media
Location
Official languages
Burmese, Cantonese, English, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Vietnamese
OwnerU.S. Agency for Global Media
President
Vacant[1]
Executive Editor
Parameswaran Ponnudurai[2]
Parent organization
U.S. Agency for Global Media
Budget
$43.1 million (2018)[3]
Staff
253[3]
Website

Based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, it was established in the 1990s with the stated aim of "promoting democratic values and human rights", and countering the narrative of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as providing media reports about North Korea.[5] It is funded by a grant from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (formerly the "Broadcasting Board of Governors"), an independent agency of the United States government.[6] In 2017, RFA and other networks, such as Voice of America, were put under the newly created U.S. Agency for Global Media, an independent US federal agency.[7]

A short-lived earlier incarnation of Radio Free Asia also existed in the 1950s during the Cold War, as an anti-Communist propaganda operation in Asia funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to try and prevent the spread of the supposed domino theory.[5][8]

Currently, RFA distributes content in ten Asian languages for audiences living in China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma.[9] The RFA, along with Adrian Zenz of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, are the primary sources on the Uyghur genocide.[10][11][12]

History

Radio Free Asia was founded and funded in the 1950s by an organization called "Committee for Free Asia" as an anti-communist propaganda operation, broadcasting from RCA facilities in Manila, Philippines,[13] and Dacca and Karachi, Pakistan (there may be other sites) until 1961. Some offices were in Tokyo. The parent organization was given as the Asia Foundation. Radio Free Asia went off the air in 1955.[14] In 1971 CIA involvement ended and all responsibilities were transferred to a presidentially appointed Board for International Broadcasting (BIB).[15][16][17]

With the passage of International Broadcasting Act in 1994, RFA was brought under auspices of the United States Information Agency where it remained until the agency's cessation of broadcasting duties and transitioned to U.S. Department of State operated BBG in 1999. In May 1994, President Bill Clinton announced the continuation of Radio Free Asia after 2009 was dependent on its increased international broadcasting and ability to reach its audience.[18] In September 2009, the 111th Congress amended the International Broadcasting Act to allow a one-year extension of the operation of Radio Free Asia.[19]

The current Radio Free Asia is a US-funded organization, incorporated in March 1996, and began broadcasting in September 1996. Although senators debated a name change, Richard Richter, the then president of Radio Free Asia, was instructed to change the name back from Asia-Pacific Network to Radio Free Asia, as "we must have the courage to confront tyranny, and to do so under the banner of freedom." Radio Free Asia was forced to change in part due to financial pressures from the US government, for although they operate with an independent board, their money mostly comes from the Treasury.[20]

RFA broadcasts in nine languages, via shortwave, satellite transmissions, medium-wave (AM and FM radio), and through the Internet. The first transmission was in Mandarin Chinese and it is RFA's most broadcast language at twelve hours per day. RFA also broadcasts in Cantonese, Tibetan (Kham, Amdo, and Uke dialects), Uyghur, Burmese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer (to Cambodia) and Korean (to North Korea). The Korean service launched in 1997 with Jaehoon Ahn as its founding director.[21]

After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, American interest in starting a government broadcasting organization grew.[22] The International Broadcasting Act was passed by the Congress of the United States in 1994. Radio Free Asia is formally a private, non-profit corporation.[23] RFA is funded by an annual federal grant from and administered by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which also serves as RFA's corporate board of directors.

List of Presidents
Name Term
Richard "Dick" Richter 1996–July 29, 2005[24][25]
Libby Liu September 2005[26]–November 2019[27]
Bay Fang November 20, 2019[27]–June 2020[28]
Stephen J. Yates December 2020[29]–January 2021[1]
Vacant

International response

Radio jamming and Internet blocking
Further information: Radio jamming in China and Radio jamming in Korea

Since broadcasting began in 1996, Chinese authorities have consistently jammed RFA broadcasts.[30]

Three RFA reporters were denied access to China to cover U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit in June 1998. The Chinese embassy in Washington had initially granted visas to the three but revoked them shortly before President Clinton left Washington en route to Beijing. The White House and United States Department of State filed complaints with Chinese authorities over the matter but the reporters ultimately did not make the trip.[30][31]

The Vietnamese-language broadcast signal was also jammed by the Vietnamese government since the beginning.[32] Human rights legislation has been proposed in Congress that would allocate money to counter the jamming.[33] Research by the OpenNet Initiative, a project that monitors Internet filtering by governments worldwide, showed that the Vietnamese-language portion of the Radio Free Asia website was blocked by both of the tested ISPs in Vietnam, while the English-language portion was blocked by one of the two ISPs.[34]

To address radio jamming and Internet blocking by the governments of the countries that it broadcasts to, the RFA website contains instruction on how to create anti-jamming antennas and information on web proxies.[35]

On March 30, 2010, China's domestic internet filters, known as the Great Firewall, temporarily blocked all Google searches in China, due to an unintentional association with the long-censored term "rfa".[36] According to Google, the letters, associated with Radio Free Asia, were appearing in the URLs of all Google searches, thereby triggering China's filter to block search results.

Arrests of Uyghur journalists' relatives
Radio Free Asia's 6 Uyghur journalists (2018)

In 2014–2015 China arrested three brothers of RFA Uyghur Service journalist Shohret Hoshur. Their jailing was widely described by Western publishers as Chinese authorities' efforts to target Hoshur for his reports on otherwise unreported violent events of ethnic Han-Uyghur tensions in China's Xinjiang region.[11][37][38][39] Much larger numbers of relatives of RFA's Uygur-language staff have since been detained, including the family of Gulchehra Hoja.[40][41]

RFA is the only station outside China that broadcasts in the Uyghur language.[40] It has been recognized by journalists of other American news outlets such as the The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Economist for playing a role in reporting on the Xinjiang re-education camps.[10][42][43] In particular, The New York Times regards RFA as one of the "few reliable sources" of information about Xinjiang.[11]

Mission
Broadcasting Information (Channels 1, 2, 3, 4)
Language ServiceTarget audienceLaunch DateDaily
Broadcast Hours
Mandarin People's Republic of ChinaSeptember 199624 Hours, Daily

÷ over 3 channels

TibetanTibet Autonomous Region
Qinghai		December 199623 Hours, Daily, 1 ch
Burmese MyanmarFebruary 19978 Hours, Daily

÷ over 3 channels

Vietnamese VietnamFebruary 19978 Hours, Daily

÷ over 2 channels

Korean North KoreaMarch 19979 Hours, Daily, 1 ch
CantoneseGuangdong
Guangxi
 Hong Kong
 Macau		May 19987 Hours, Daily

÷ over 2 channels

Lao LaosAugust 19975 Hours, Daily, 1 ch
Khmer CambodiaSeptember 19975 Hours, Daily, 1 ch
UyghurXinjiangDecember 19986 Hours, Daily, 1 ch

Its functions, as listed in 22 U.S.C. § 6208, are:

  1. [to] provide accurate and timely information, news, and commentary about events in Asia and elsewhere; and
  2. [to] be a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within Asian nations whose people do not fully enjoy freedom of expression.

Additionally, the International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (Title III of Pub.L. 103–236), which authorised the creation of the RFA, contains the following paragraph:

The continuation of existing U.S. international broadcasting, and the creation of a new broadcasting service to people of the People's Republic of China and other countries of Asia, which lack adequate sources of free information and ideas, would enhance the promotion of information and ideas, while advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy.

This appears among a list of both "Congressional Findings and Declarations of Purpose", though which it is, is not specified. The subsequent section, outlining "Standards and Principles" states that all US-funded broadcasting should be "consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States", with news that is "consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, objective, and comprehensive".[44]

Criticism

In 1999, Catharin Dalpino of the Brookings Institution, who served in the Clinton State Department as a deputy assistant secretary deputy for human rights, called Radio Free Asia "a waste of money." "Wherever we feel there is an ideological enemy, we're going to have a Radio Free Something," she says. Dalpino said she has reviewed scripts of Radio Free Asia's broadcasts and views the station's reporting as unbalanced. "They lean very heavily on reports by and about dissidents in exile. It doesn't sound like reporting about what's going on in a country. Often, it reads like a textbook on democracy, which is fine, but even to an American it's rather propagandistic."[45]

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service of the U.S. government, official state-controlled newspapers in China have run editorials claiming Radio Free Asia is a CIA broadcast operation, as was the case with the first Radio Free Asia.[22]

North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency has referred to Radio Free Asia as "reptile broadcasting services."[46] Kim Chol-min, third secretary of North Korea, in statement submitted at the United Nations, accused the United States of engaging in "psychological warfare" with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea through RFA.[47]

Following the Burmese Saffron Revolution in the fall of 2007, the Myanmar junta held rallies attended by thousands holding signs that condemned external interference and accused Radio Free Asia, the Voice of America, and the BBC of "airing a skyful of lies."[48] In October 2007, Burmese state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar singled out "big powers" and Radio Free Asia, among other international broadcasters, as inciting protesters during the Saffron Revolution.[49]

Awards

See also

References
  1. Folkenflik, David (January 22, 2021). "USAGM Chief Fires Trump Allies Over Radio Free Europe And Other Networks". NPR. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
  2. "Parameswaram Ponnudurai, Executive Editor". RFA. November 20, 2019. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  3. "RFA – USAGM". Archived from the original on January 4, 2019. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  4. Radio Free Asia – About Archived January 4, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 November 2015
  5. David Welch (November 27, 2013). Propaganda, Power and Persuasion: From World War I to Wikileaks. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85773-737-3. Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
  6. "About". Broadcasting Board of Governors. n.d. Archived from the original on June 14, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  7. "US Launches New Mandarin Network as Washington and Beijing Battle for Global Influence". South China Morning Post. November 24, 2019. Archived from the original on November 24, 2019. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
  8. Central Intelligence Agency (April 1, 1953). "Memorandum For: Special Assistant to the President; International Radio Broadcasting by Radio Free Asia" (PDF). foia.cia.gov. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  9. "Radio Free Asia | USAGov". Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  10. "Knowledge of China's gulag owes much to American-backed radio". The Economist. October 26, 2019. Archived from the original on October 25, 2019. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  11. Forsythe, Michael (July 31, 2015). "A Voice From China's Uighur Homeland, Reporting From the U.S." New York Times. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  12. "Threat of Lawsuit Shows China 'Losing The Battle' in Propaganda War Over Xinjiang: Adrian Zenz". rfa.org. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  13. Central Intelligence Agency (April 1, 1953). "Memorandum For: Special Assistant to the President; International Radio Broadcasting by Radio Free Asia" (PDF). foia.cia.gov. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
  14. "Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A." New York Times. December 26, 1977. Archived from the original on July 4, 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  15. Tom Engelhardt: "The End of Victory Culture". Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (University of Massachusetts Press 1998); p. 120. ISBN 1-55849-133-3.
  16. Helen Laville, Hugh Wilford: "The US Government, Citizen Groups And the Cold War". p. 215. The State-Private Network (Routledge 1996). ISBN 0-415-35608-3.
  17. Daya Kishan Thussu: "International Communication". Continuity and Change (Arnold 2000). p. 37. ISBN 0-340-74130-9.
  18. Executive Order 12, 850, 3 C.F.R. 606, 607 § 1(b).
  19. Bill Text Versions for the 111th Congress, 2009–2010. The Library of Congress. Archived March 6, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  20. Mann, Jim (September 30, 1996). "After 5 Years of Political Wrangling, Radio Free Asia Becomes a Reality". Los Angeles Times. Times Mirror Company. Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  21. Brown, Emma (June 10, 2011). "Jaehoon Ahn, reporter and Post researcher, dies". Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 6, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2011.
  22. Susan B. Epstein: CRS Report for Congress Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine (PDF)
  23. "Governance and Corporate Leadership". Radio Free Asia. n.d. Archived from the original on April 15, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  24. "Radio Free Asia Founding President Retires". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  25. "Statement of RFA President on the Passing of Dick Richter, RFA's Founding President". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  26. "Libby Liu, President". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  27. "Bay Fang Named Radio Free Asia's New President". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  28. "New U.S. broadcasting chief fires agency heads". POLITICO. Associated Press. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  29. "Stephen Yates joins U.S. international broadcasting as President of RFA". USAGM. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
  30. Mann, "China Bars 3 Journalists From Clinton's Trip", The Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1998
  31. Sieff/Scully "Radio Free Asia reporters stay home; Clinton kowtows to Beijing's ban, critics contend", The Washington Times, June 24, 1998
  32. "Radio Free Asia says broadcasts to Vietnam are being jammed". CNN. February 7, 1997. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 11, 2008.
  33. "H.R. 1587 Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2004". Congressional Budget Office. June 24, 2004. Archived from the original on October 17, 2007. Retrieved February 11, 2008.
  34. "OpenNet Initiative: Vietnam". OpenNet Initiative. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2008.
  35. "RFA: Anti-jamming antenna". Archived from the original on July 23, 2014. Retrieved February 11, 2008.
  36. Censky, Annalyn (March 30, 2010). "Google blames China's 'great firewall' for outage". CNN. Archived from the original on April 3, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
  37. Casey, Michael (July 9, 2015). "China's War Against One American Journalist". Slate. Archived from the original on July 25, 2015. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  38. Denyur, Simon (January 8, 2015). "China uses long-range intimidation of U.S. reporter to suppress Xinjiang coverage". Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 22, 2015. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  39. Editorial Board (June 9, 2015). "China exports repression beyond its borders". Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 19, 2015. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  40. "To suppress news of Xinjiang's gulag, China threatens Uighurs abroad". The Economist. October 23, 2019. Archived from the original on October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
  41. "To suppress news of Xinjiang's gulag, China threatens Uighurs abroad". The Economist. October 24, 2019. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
  42. Hiatt, Fred (November 3, 2019). "In China, every day is Kristallnacht". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 7, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
  43. "What It's Like to Report on Rights Abuses Against Your Own Family". The Atlantic. March 1, 2019. Archived from the original on December 11, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  44. Pub.L. 103–236, Sec. 303
  45. Dick Kirschten (May 1, 1999). "Broadcast News". Archived from the original on September 21, 2015.
  46. "KCNA raps U.S. despicable psychological warfare against DPRK," February 22, 2008 BBC Monitoring Service
  47. General Assembly GA/SPD/430 Archived October 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine United Nations Department of Public Information, October 2009
  48. On Quiet Streets of Myanmar Fear Is a Constant Companion Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine International Herald Tribune. October 21, 2007
  49. Myanmar guards accused of detainee abuse Associated Press. October 11, 2007
  50. Duggan, Paul; Clarence Williams (November 1, 2008). "Cover-Up Alleged in D.C. Killing Of Lawyer". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved December 31, 2008.

Further reading
Library resources about
Radio Free Asia
  • Engelhardt, Tom (1998). The End of Victory Culture. Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 1-55849-133-3.
  • Laville, Helen; Wilford, Hugh (1996). The US Government, Citizen Groups And the Cold War. The State-Private Network. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-35608-3.
  • Thussu, Daya Kishan (2000). International Communication. Continuity and Change. Arnold. ISBN 0-340-74130-9.
  • Defty, Andrew (2004). Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda, 1945–53. The Information Research Department. Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-5443-4.
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