Radio Free Asia - Wikipedia

Radio Free Asia - Wikipedia

RFA’s self-stated mission is directed by the 1994 International Broadcasting Act. RFA claim their intent is "Acting as a substitute for indigenous free media, RFA concentrates its coverage on events occurring in and/or affecting the countries to which it broadcasts."[27]

However, the International Broadcasting Act of 1994 (Title III of Pub.L. 103–236) is more explicit about the political mission of RFA:


the continuation of existing U.S. international broadcasting, and the creation of a new broadcasting service to people of the People's Republic of China and other countries of Asia, which lack adequate sources of free information and ideas, would enhance the promotion of information and ideas, while advancing the goals of U.S. foreign policy.
Criticism[edit]

In 1999, Catharin Dalpino of the Brookings Institution, who served in the Clinton State Department as a deputy assistant secretary deputy for human rights, called Radio Free Asia "a waste of money." "Wherever we feel there is an ideological enemy, we're going to have a Radio Free Something," she says. Dalpino said she has reviewed scripts of Radio Free Asia's broadcasts and views the station's reporting as unbalanced. "They lean very heavily on reports by and about dissidents in exile. It doesn't sound like reporting about what's going on in a country. Often, it reads like a textbook on democracy, which is fine, but even to an American it's rather propagandistic."[28]

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service of the U.S. government, official state-controlled newspapers in China have run editorials claiming Radio Free Asia is a CIAbroadcast operation, as was the case with the first Radio Free Asia.[14]

North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency has referred to Radio Free Asia as "reptile broadcasting services."[29]

Kim Chol-min, third secretary of North Korea, in statement submitted at the United Nations, accusing the United States of engaging in "psychological warfare" with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea through RFA.[30]

Following the Burmese Saffron Revolution in the fall of 2007, the Myanmar junta held rallies attended by thousands holding signs that condemned external interference and accused Radio Free Asia, the Voice of America, and the BBC of "airing a skyful of lies."[31]

In October 2007, Burmese state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar singled out "big powers" and Radio Free Asia, among other international broadcasters, as inciting protesters during the Saffron Revolution.[32]