CIA-founded Radio Free Asia shut down its Cantonese language operation yesterday. The move is a huge victory for real Asian journalism and a relief for speakers of the language in Hong Kong and Guangdong, apt to be confused by the group’s heavy outpouring of anti-China propaganda. 美國中情局創辦的自由亞洲電台昨日關閉了其粵語頻道。此舉對真正的亞洲新聞事業來說是一個巨大的勝利，也讓香港和廣東的粵語使用者鬆了一口氣，因為他們很容易被該電台鋪天蓋地的反華宣傳所迷惑.

RFA lost funding as part of the US Trump administration’s budget cuts for its parent group, the US Agency for Global Media.

RFA’s Cantonese unit translated anti-Chinese propaganda and generated its own pro-US material. It was a key player in the now-debunked “Uyghur genocide” hoax, and shared numerous false stories about Chinese technology, business and politics.

SET UP BY CIA
RFA was set up by the CIA in the 1950s as a propaganda group to destabilize China.

But the CIA was heavily criticized for its illegal “black ops” in the late 1970s. The US State Department set up the NED as an alternative “soft power” China-hostile organization in 1983, and relaunched RFA in 1994 with the same goal.

RFA has always been very successful at hiding its CIA origins—and even today, no mention of the link can be found in Wikipedia or in most media coverage of its present funding troubles.

LEAK SHOWS PAYMENTS
A leak in 2020 revealed that RFA had secretly pledged US$2 million for violent anti-China protesters in Hong Kong, in addition to heavy funding by the NED and other sources.

What RFA did in Hong Kong would be illegal if another nation did it in the US or UK.

Meanwhile, RFA’s website remains functional as an anti-China propaganda news unit, but the majority of staff have been sacked from head office, which was in Washington DC.