Given that China is the single greatest challenge to U.S. supremacy – a view that very likely prevails within the Trump administration – competition between the two powers has naturally been intense and long-standing. For its part, China aims to catch up with and overtake the U.S. by 2049. From Beijing’s perspective, the biggest discrepancies between the two countries lie in military power, the broader network of alliances, and control over the global discourse. However, the Trump administration has shown little interest in its allies and seems to have little desire to retain its dominant position in the global discourse.
This month, Voice of America (VOA), which is directly managed by the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), placed all employees on paid administrative leave and began instituting mass layoffs. A presidential executive order issued on March 14 ordered the removal of “non-statutory entities” under the jurisdiction of the USAGM. In fact, funding was drastically reduced or suspended altogether, even for organizations that had been established through legal means. These included Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). RFA broadcasts were reaching more than 50 million listeners in multiple languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Uyghur, Tibetan, and Korean. Among these languages, the Mandarin broadcasts, which began in 1996, had been given special emphasis. Uyghur broadcasts began in 1999.
RFA broadcasts and reports have produced numerous revelations, including the existence of a surveillance system in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Many global media outlets and researchers have relied on RFA’s coverage and reports as the basis for their own work. In other words, the RFA has served as a key source of information on human rights violations and other issues in Western societies. China has, of course, pushed back against the RFA’s claims. With the RFA’s funding now cut off, Beijing no longer needs to worry about that.
There has been a push in China to obtain its own discourse rights (essentially, the ability to shape the narrative on human rights). In addition to its efforts to block negative narratives from entering the country, Beijing has been sharing positive information with global audiences while criticizing and rejecting unfavorable policies. RFA’s reporting is a prime example of the kind of narratives China seeks to silence. The U.S. government’s suspension of funding for organizations like the RFA greatly benefits China in its pursuit of discourse rights.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese media has praised the suspension of support for VOA and RFA. In an article published on March 19, the Global Times, a media outlet affiliated with China’s People’s Daily, criticized VOA for consistently producing fake news and spreading narratives about ethnic cleansing and forced labor in Xinjiang, as well as economic aggression and debt traps related to foreign aid. The article also stated that it never expected the U.S. itself to shut down VOA’s activities and welcomed an end to U.S. hegemonism. In other words, the Chinese media is delighted with developments, evidence of how threatening the actions of VOA and RFA were to China.
China is likely to ramp up its international propaganda, focusing not on the developed West but on the Global South, an area of the world that has not been of great interest to the Trump administration, evidenced in its decision to slash the budget of USAID. This is a golden opportunity for China, which has faced an increase in global anti-China sentiment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Trump’s policies toward China appear to place little emphasis on the global discourse, values, or the importance of allies and like-minded nations. The challenge for these U.S. allies and like-minded countries, including Japan, will be how to respond to these policies, perhaps by increasing their foreign public relations budgets to compensate for the dysfunction or shutdown of outlets like VOA and RFA.
KAWASHIMA Shin is a professor at the University of Tokyo.
