China, Russia eager to fill void as Trump axes US-funded media

As President Donald Trump moves to axe Voice of America and other US-funded media, China and Russia are eager to fill the void.

The targeting of VOA, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia not only freezes some of the most dogged reporting on countries with heavily restricted media, but it comes after years of concerted efforts by Beijing and Moscow to promote their own worldview on the global media landscape.

Trump issued an executive order Friday to pare down the nearly $1 billion US Agency for Global Media, with hundreds of journalists swiftly put on leave or fired, in his latest sweeping cut to the federal government.

Lisa Curtis, who was a senior official on the National Security Council in Trump's first term and serves as board chair of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, formed in the Cold War to reach behind the Iron Curtain, said that closing the service "will actually help our adversaries."

"Countries like China, Russia and Iran are investing hundreds of millions of dollars pumping out anti-American propaganda and disinformation," she said.

"Why would the Trump administration want to disarm itself in this environment?" she asked.

She said a pro bono legal team was challenging the authority to cut the funding, which was appropriated by Congress.

- Aggressive marketing -

A 2022 study by Freedom House, the democracy promotion research group which has also seen US government funding slashed by Trump, found that China has ramped up its media footprint globally.

The report said China has found success by offering free or low-cost content and providing equipment and other services needed by resources-stretched outlets.

While Chinese media are often formal in tone, Russia has aggressively challenged the West through government-run Sputnik and RT.

After Europeans banned the outlets in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has set its sights on Africa, including through social media campaigns targeting Western health projects, according to the Global Engagement Center, the State Department's anti-disinformation arm that also recently closed.

After budget cuts in 2023 in Britain, the BBC ended long-time radio services including in Arabic. The BBC director general later said that Russian media took over the BBC Arabic radio frequency in Lebanon.

Sarah Cook, a researcher who led the 2022 Freedom House report, said it was not as simple as China taking over from VOA, which did not enter into local contracts in the same way as Chinese media.

But a very different sort of journalism could dominate if China rather than the United States funds reporting in the developing world.

"Even if Chinese state media are doing it, the content is completely different. It's all pro-government, even pro-local government," she said.

- 'Lie factory' -

Observers say the impact could be greatest in countries such as Cambodia and Laos, which lack the sophisticated online censorship of China. Cambodia's longtime former leader Hun Sen wrote on Facebook to thank Trump "for his courage to lead the world to combat fake news."

In China, the Global Times hailed the end of "lie factory" VOA, and Sputnik said VOA and RFE were behind "fakes" about Russia's alleged massacre of civilians in Kyiv's Bucha suburb.

Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter brought to the US Agency for Global Media, described it as a "giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer" that is not "salvageable."

Trump often rails against media coverage of him, and his administration has called government-funded media outdated, as private news sources are readily available.

But US-funded broadcasters ran in dozens of languages and often relied on exiles with unique sourcing in their homelands.

Curtis pointed to a figure that Persian-language Radio Farda reached 10 percent of Iran's adult population every week and to original reporting, including a 2016 RFE/RL story on a Chinese military base in Tajikistan.

Radio Free Asia broadcasts in the Tibetan and Uyghur languages, a unique outlet for journalists from the minority groups to operate outside the constraints both of the Chinese government and of commercial pressure.

"They are going to cover the stories that don't get picked up by other outlets, because big media cover more broadly and don't necessarily have as many native speakers employed," said Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who has researched Chinese media policies.

Ohlberg said China began a global hiring spree in media during the 2008 financial crisis as it saw the struggles of Western commercial outlets, which have long angered Beijing with critical coverage.

"They saw an opportunity -- let's offer our narrative," she said.

"That expansion is going to continue, and it would have regardless of this decision.

"It just makes it easier for the narrative to take hold as there are now fewer alternatives."