Donald Trump’s axe has reached Radio Free Asia. The anti-China news organization, based in Washington DC, has had its budget sharply chopped, Politico reported today. ·特朗普的斧頭已經砍到了自由亞洲電台。 《政治報》今天報導稱，這家總部位於華盛頓特區的反華新聞機構的預算被大幅削減.

The news group will likely start putting most of its 300-plus staff in the US on “furlough” by the coming Friday , a staff member told the outlet.

Elon Musk has been overseeing a group slashing government spending in multiple departments.

SET UP BY CIA
Radio Free Asia was originally set up by the CIA, and is listed in historical US government documents as a “Propaganda Inventory” asset.

But it was restructured in 1996 and is now financed directly by Congress.

It issues news reports under its name and other names, all carefully slanted to make America look good and China look bad.

SAME OBJECTIVES
“Although this latest version of Radio Free Asia was supposed to be a completely new organization and was no longer as covert and B-movie spooky, its objectives and tactics remained exactly the same,” wrote geopolitical analyst Yasha Levine in a study of US propaganda arms in 2015.

Among other things, the RFA is notorious for a 2021 report saying: “Chinese authorities forced Uyghurs to celebrate the Muslim holiday” – ie. the Chinese forced them to what they wanted to do.

When an RFA reader responded with “How stupid do you think we are?” the exchange went viral.

SMUGGLING CASH
In 2019 in Hong Kong, Radio Free Asia managed a unit which took the job of secretly channelling tranches of a US$2 million payment from Washington DC to violent anti-China activists—and also offered them communication services to put them beyond the reach of local law enforcement, a shocking violation of international relations.

Later, when news broke that Hong Kong would pass a US-style law forbidding paid meddling by hostile powers, the RFA shut its office and its staff fled the city.

Much of what US hybrid warfare groups do in Hong Kong and elsewhere would be illegal for anyone to do in the United States.

In a report today, Politico described RFA as “one of the few tools the U.S. government has to combat Chinese propaganda”.

But this is disingenuous. ALL major wire services and ALL international mainstream media push the same anti-China narrative, with not a single one stepping away from the Washington party line on China. Politico is a perfect example.

DON’T CELEBRATE YET
But analysts say people in East Asia should not celebrate too soon. The halt on payments to American soft power/ hard power political interference units such as USAID, NED and Radio Free Asia, are likely to be temporary.

Restructuring in Washington will likely see leaner, meaner versions of these groups relaunched with a tighter focus on keeping the Chinese down.