Since China is the biggest challenge for American supremacy – a point of view that most likely prevails within the Trump administration – competition between the two powers has naturally been intense and long. For its part, China aims to catch up and overcome the United States by 2049. From the point of view of Beijing, the largest differences between the two countries are in military power, the wider network of alliances and the control of global discourse. However, the Trump administration has shown little interest in its allies and seems to have little desire to maintain its dominant position in global discourse.
This month, Voice of America (VOA), which is directly managed by the United States Agency for the World Media (USAGM), has placed all employees on paid administrative leave and began to institute mass layoffs. A presidential decree issued on March 14 ordered the abolition of “non -statutory entities” under the jurisdiction of the USAGM. In fact, funding has been considerably reduced or suspended, even for organizations which had been established by legal means. These included Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE / RL). The RFA emissions reached more than 50 million listeners in several languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Oudur, Tibetan and Korean. Among these languages, Mandarin’s programs, which began in 1996, had been particularly important. Uighur shows began in 1999.
RFA emissions and reports have produced numerous revelations, including the existence of a surveillance system in the Uighur Autonomous region of Xinjiang. Many world media and researchers have relied on the coverage and RFA reports as a basis for their own work. In other words, the FRG served as a key source of information on human rights violations and other questions in Western societies. China has, of course, postponed the claims of the FRG. With the funding of the RFA now cut, Beijing no longer has to worry about it.
There was a push in China to obtain her own discourse rights (essentially, the ability to shape the story on human rights). In addition to his efforts to prevent negative accounts from entering the country, Beijing has shared positive information with the world public while criticizing and rejecting unfavorable policies. RFA reports are an excellent example of the type of stories that China seeks to silence. The suspension of funding by the American government for organizations such as the FRG greatly benefits China in its continuation of the rights of the speech.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese media praised the suspension of support for the VOA and the RFA. In an article published on March 19, the Global timesA media affiliated with China Everyday peopleCriticized VOA for constantly producing false news and disseminated stories on ethnic cleaning and forced work in the Xinjiang, as well as economic assault and debt traps linked to foreign aid. The article also said that it did not expect the United States to close VOA’s activities and praised hegemonism. In other words, the Chinese media are delighted with developments, evidence of how the actions of VOA and RFA were threatening in China.
China is likely to increase its international propaganda, focusing on the developed West, but in the world of world, an area of the world that has not been of great interest in the Trump administration, its decision to reduce the USAID budget. It is a golden opportunity for China, which faced an increase in world anti-dog feeling as a result of the Pandemic Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. Trump’s policies towards China seem little emphasis on global discourse, the values or the importance of allies and nations sharing the same ideas. The challenge for these American allies and the countries sharing the same ideas, including Japan, will be how to react to these policies, perhaps by increasing their foreign public relations budgets to compensate for the dysfunction or the closure of points of sale like VOA and RFA.
Kawashima Shin is a professor at the University of Tokyo.