Chinese state media is gloating about drastic budget cuts to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, U.S. government-funded media outlets that have for decades drawn protests from Beijing over their coverage of human rights abuses in China.

       Voice of America and Radio Free Asia had long transmitted news into countries where access to accurate information from the outside world was severely limited. Radio Free Asia, for instance, broadcasts in Mandarin, Cantonese, Uyghur, Tibetan and other languages.

       In China, where the ruling Communist Party has railed against the influence of America and its Western allies on global opinion, state media outlets and nationalists hailed the troubles faced by the U.S.-funded outlets as vindication of their complaints. The authorities have for years jammed Voice of America and Radio Free Asia radio transmissions.

       The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, denounced Voice of America as a “frontline propaganda tool” and a “lie factory.”

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       “Almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial on Monday, citing what it described as biased reports about Taiwan, unrest in Hong Kong and the coronavirus pandemic.

       The news outlets and their ability to operate is in question after President Trump signed an executive order on Friday calling for the dismantling of the Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that oversees them. At Voice of America, hundreds of employees in Washington were informed that they were being put on paid leave. Radio Free Asia said the federal grants that funded it were terminated on Saturday morning.

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