淮鹽荔枝米俐

China jams RFA and VOA broadcasts, which Tibetans say are their only lifelines to uncensored news.
By RFA Tibetan
2025.03.26

An RFA Tibetan production studio at their headquarters in Washington, March 24, 2025. (Charlie Dharapak/RFA)
Celebratory Chinese media reports about the U.S. administration’s gutting of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America has sparked widespread concern among Tibetans living in Tibet who fear they will no longer have access to uncensored news in their own language, sources in the region said.

But Tibetans say they are relieved to see that Radio Free Asia is still broadcasting into the region despite the March 15 termination of Congressionally-authorized federal grants that fund the editorially independent news service.

“We still see you. We still hear you,” said one of the sources based in Tibet’s capital Lhasa on Thursday, just days after the abrupt cut to RFA’s funds forced the outlet to furlough much of its staff in its Washington headquarters.

RFA Tibetan's Instagram video Reels page. (RFA)
Chinese media and Beijing’s army of nationalistic ‘little pink’ commentators welcomed the news about RFA and VOA, with the state-owned Beijing Daily declaring that the “beacon of freedom has collapsed” and that “U.S. hegemony will eventually perish under global condemnation.”

With the reduced staff, RFA’s nine language services -- including Tibetan, Mandarin and Uyghur -- are providing limited news updates via its website, social, and radio to regions across Asia with little or no press freedom, from North Korea and China to Cambodia and Myanmar.

“I listen and follow RFA and I am relieved to see you are still working despite the funding cut and risk of closure,” a second source based in the Tibet Autonomous Region told RFA Tibetan.

“I hope and pray that the (U.S.) administration reconsiders the decision and continues to fund your work,” the person said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Risking personal safety to listen
Under Mao Zedong, Communist Chinese forces invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950. Ever since, Beijing has maintained a tight grip on Tibetan daily life, suppressing Tibetan culture, the language and Buddhist practices while trying to assimilate Tibetans into Han Chinese culture.

In Tibet, RFA serves as a rare source of factual, timely news and information about domestic and international affairs as well as about the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in northern India, and Tibetans abroad.

Many Tibetans risk personal safety to secretly tune in to RFA and VOA and listen to these broadcasts, which the Chinese government has frequently jammed, according to former political prisoners, Tibetans, rights groups and foreign tourists.

Chinese officials have also destroyed or confiscated hundreds of ‘illegal’ satellite dishes, with seizures common across the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.

Access to RFA Tibetan’s news website and social platforms are also blocked. However, some Tibetans use digital circumvention tools to get around China’s “Great Firewall” that censors and blocks access to many Western websites and news sources, including X, formerly known as Twitter.