Representatives of closed Asian societies without free press on Monday welcomed the U.S. administration’s decision to halt broadcasts by Voice of America and freeze funding to Radio Free Asia, while democracy activists and dissidents expressed disbelief and dismay. China’s state-backed Global Times published an editorial focusing on VOA which it called “a lie factory” and “a thoroughly biased propaganda poison.”
“The so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag,” it said.
In a Facebook post, former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is Senate president and the father of the current premier, called the closure of U.S.-funded “propaganda” outlets “a major contribution to eliminating fake news, disinformation, lies, distortions, incitement, and chaos around the world.”
