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An entrance of the Voice of America building in Washington, the US Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

US billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), recently called for the radio stations Radio Free Europe and Voice of America (VOA), founded by the US, to be shut down. Musk wrote on the social media platform X that nobody listens to them anymore and "it is just racial left crazy people talking to themselves while torching US$1B/year of US taxpayer money." These remarks drew worldwide attention over the news outlets as, for years, they have been widely criticized for their "biased" and "reality-distorted" reporting in many countries to advance US interests.

The VOA, in particular, is infamously known for many of its "fake reports" that aim to tarnish China's image and spread rumors. What is the origin of the VOA? What common tactics does the VOA employ as part of a propaganda campaign to advance US interests while undermining others? In this installment, we look into the VOA to find answers. 

Origin of war machines

Established in 1942, the VOA is funded by the US government through the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), according to the VOA website. 

The predecessor of the USAGM was the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which was responsible for managing the international broadcasting activities of US foreign propaganda. Outlets such as the VOA and Radio Free Asia (RFA), which are referred to as the mouthpieces of the US government, fall under its purview. 

According to history.com, an American website focusing on history, the VOA was established as a radio program aimed at clarifying US policies during World War II and boosting the morale of its allies across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Following the war, the VOA evolved into a key component of the US' Cold War propaganda efforts, primarily targeting audiences in Western Europe. In February 1947, it launched its inaugural Russian-language broadcasts directed at the Soviet Union. 

By the time WWII ended, the VOA was broadcasting 3,200 programs in 40 languages every week. The VOA's function is to "promote understanding of the US and to spread American values," read an entry in Britannica, a fact-checked online encyclopedia. 

The US "used public diplomacy to persuade European audiences that the foundations of democratic government and capitalist enterprise were superior to Soviet alternatives. The VOA broadcast directly into the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe to dispel myths about the West," said the article. 

"VOA has always been a Cold War weapon for the US, a part of its so-called propaganda for the enemy," Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"It was never a media outlet in the conventional sense. From its inception, it has been a tool of ideological warfare by using false or misleading information to smear and spread negative propaganda about enemy nations and camps that the US deemed hostile," Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

Shen introduced that during the Cold War, the VOA used shortwave radio to broadcast US foreign policy to the world. As time progressed, the VOA underwent significant technological changes. After the Cold War ended, it transitioned onto online platforms and rebranded itself as an "independent media outlet." 

In recent years, the VOA has ramped up efforts to be complicit with US government in spreading both misleading and fabricated information to suppress China, Shen pointed out.

Photo: VCG

Dirty smear tactics 

When the US administration wielded its judicial power against overseas Chinese people, accusing them of being "agents of the Chinese government," the VOA played a role in this campaign. One of the latest cases is that of Liang Litang.

A federal jury on February 10 found a Boston man, Liang Litang, not guilty of charges that he was secretly working with the Chinese government to compile a "blacklist" of Chinese activists and organizations in the US, a Boston-based American daily newspaper, the Boston Globe, reported.

Following the verdict, Liang expressed to the media, "Justice has finally arrived."

Liang, 65, an overseas Chinese who runs a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was arrested by the FBI in May 2023. He was accused of being an "agent" of the Chinese government. 

However, during the period of Liang's arrest and prior to the trial, the VOA published several stories attacking him, suggesting that he was guilty without the need for a trial. These articles included videos featuring some Chinese Americans with anti-China sentiments to play "people in the know," listing Liang's "crimes" and asserting that the FBI's surveillance of Liang is justified. Expressing their pure hate emotions, these people condemned Liang in front of the camera. The videos, while emotionally charged, lacked substantive evidence and appeared to be driven by a one-sided agenda.

The VOA certainly did not miss the verdict in Liang's case, but in its report on his acquittal, all the interviews cited were from individuals expressing disappointment with the not guilty verdict.

Despite citing one-sided unverified sources, the Global Times found that, in an effort to present itself as an "independent media" outlet, the VOA employs a reporting strategy that has often created negative associations to achieve its intended propaganda effect.

For example, on January 11, 2005, the VOA aired two pieces on China's economic news: The first was that China's trade surplus in December reached a record high, while the second claimed that trade with China was causing job losses in the US, stating that since 1989, the growing trade surplus with China had resulted in the loss of 1.5 million American jobs. Despite the positive news regarding China's economic development, the VOA consistently managed to twist the narrative to evoke negative sentiments among international readers, according to the Xinhua News Agency. 

Due to the constant influx of such news, Chinese media has identified a pattern in how VOA the disseminates negative narratives about China. This pattern often involves "insiders" or "authoritative scholars" leaking unfavorable information, which the VOA then claimed to "investigate further." This process is frequently amplified by "anti-China politicians" who echo these sentiments and contribute additional exaggerated claims. As a result, a closed loop emerges, resembling a "black industry chain" of "anti-China rhetoric" that spans from fabricating lies to launching attacks, Xinhua reported.

The Global Times found this trend to be particularly pronounced during significant events hosted by China. For instance, during the opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the VOA published dozens of articles aimed at discrediting China within a short period of time. Furthermore, a search for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the VOA website reveals that the first five pages predominantly feature negative coverage.

"They defined the concept of 'human rights' based on the standards they set. Nearly everything China does is likely to be portrayed as a violation of the human rights," Lü commented.  

"When listening to the VOA, it often presents China and the US as completely opposing worlds: One is portrayed as civilized, while the other as barbaric. One is upholding human rights, while the other is claimed to be denying them. This stark binary contrast is clearly reflected in its broadcasts," he said.

Predictable decline

The VOA has been a significant player in global media for more than 80 years. However, its relevance and effectiveness in today's rapidly evolving media landscape are increasingly under scrutiny. 

Today, the question arises: What does it truly mean to the US? 

In a thought-provoking article published in 2016 on the website of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, Dan Robinson, a former senior White House correspondent for the VOA, argued that the organization had lost its purpose and should be dismantled. Robinson highlighted that the VOA has long suffered from chaotic management, resulting in a demoralized workforce and diminished operational capacity.

Robinson pointed out that the speed and efficiency of its news reporting, particularly on its primary English-language website, have significantly declined. This decline has rendered the VOA less competitive in an increasingly crowded media environment, where diverse information sources abound.

Robinson even bluntly pointed out that at the time, BBG executives, the VOA's top brass, would go on to use Russia and China as an excuse to "keep the mismanaged BBG alive ad infinitum."

In 2021, US lawmakers introduced the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, which proposed allocating $100 million annually for USAGM's ongoing and new programs to support several media outlets to counter China. 

However, no matter how hard the US government and VOA staff members try, people have realized that "the era when former US president Ronald Reagan could read a script in the VOA studio and create a stir in Soviet society has long since ended. In today's rapidly developing internet age, Chinese and American netizens can now share information on social media platforms like RedNotes without any barriers," Shen said.

As a researcher, Lü said he rarely turns to the VOA because its information is "too weak." "Every topic related to China is interpreted through a one-sided ideological lens, purely ideological interpretation. Moreover, some of its practices even violate journalistic ethics," he explained. 

"The VOA's news approach has long lost its credibility within both American society and the international community," Lü Chao, director of the Institute of US and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University, told the Global Times. 

Currently, the US is experiencing an unprecedented internal division and reorganization among its elites. For many Republicans, the VOA has long been a financial burden, Lü Xiang noted. "It has now become a political weapon in domestic political struggles. The VOA fails to serve the purpose of enhancing the US' image abroad, therefore, it is not surprising that DOGE is now calling for to reform or even shut it down," he said.

"A few decades ago, radio broadcasts were considered an advanced means of communication, but today, they are completely out of place in the digital age," Lü Chao said. "Musk's criticism of the VOA is rooted in the intense competition between the two parties; the outcome is uncertain, but the decline of the VOA is predictable."