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This World Radio Day, 13 February 2026, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warns that China’s state-owned broadcaster China National Radio (CNR) has rapidly expanded its Tibetan-language programming, pushing government propaganda deeper into Tibetan communities.
RSF is outraged that the regime’s narrative is moving to fill the void left by the suspension of Tibetan-language services at the international broadcasters Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of America (VOA).
RSF urges the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees RFA and VOA, to restore this essential programming, and calls on the international community to support independent Tibetan media outlets.
In under a year, CNR expanded its Tibetan-language programming from one programme to seventeen, according to the new winter season broadcast schedule of the High Frequency Coordination Conference (HFCC), an international non-governmental organisation that coordinates the use of shortwave frequencies among broadcasters worldwide. This dramatic scale-up comes alongside the suspension of the Tibetan services of RFA and VOA as the administration of US President Donald Trump attempts to dismantle USAGM media.
Without RFA and VOA, there is currently almost no counter‑voice capable of challenging the Chinese regime’s propaganda in Tibet, which glorifies the Communist Party, promotes “ethnic unity,” and attributes any dissent to “hostile external forces.”
Aleksandra Bielakowska, RSF Asia-Pacific Advocacy Manager, says: “The expansion of radio programming in Tibet by Chinese state media is a new, key part of Beijing’s strategy to promote a new world order in the information space by flooding it with propaganda. As predicted, China has jumped on the opportunity to fill the information void now that VOA and RFA broadcasting is absent from Tibet — and Kari Lake, Trump’s pick to lead USAGM, refuses to restore Tibetan programming. Democracies must act swiftly and provide independent Tibetan media with the funding and support they desperately need. In particular, Kari Lake and USAGM should prioritise the relaunch of Tibetan programming before audiences are left with no source of information other than the state’s narrative.”
CNR’s increase in Tibetan-language programming is part of Beijing’s plan to ensure “the leader’s [Xi Jinping’s] thoughts to penetrate the hearts of people of different ethnicities like a shower of honey,” as Shen Haixiong, Deputy Head of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and Head of the China Media Group., stated during the 75th-anniversary celebration of state-run Chinese Tibetan Radio in May 2025.
Tibet: an information black hole
In the Tibet Autonomous Region, more than in any other part of China, the regime closely monitors and represses anyone attempting to disseminate information from independent sources — especially news on the widespread human rights abuses against the Tibetan minority. Foreign journalists are routinely denied access to the region. The halt of RFA and VOA services has deprived millions of people of access to reliable information. Their Tibetan services documented human rights abuses and cultural persecution, and highlighted the resilience of the Tibetan people. Their radio programmes served as a lifeline that allowed listeners in Tibet to bypass Beijing’s extreme crackdown on trustworthy information.
“With the current suspension of VOA and RFA Tibetan services, and the expansion of Chinese state-media coverage, Tibetans inside Tibet say they are ‘missing their morning breakfast,’” said Kalsang Jigme, founder of the independent media Tibet Radio, and a former reporter for VOA’s Tibetan service. Former deputy director of RFA Tibetan services Palden Gyal told RSF: “The recent suspension of these services has allowed the Chinese Government, through the expansion of its own media outlets, to intensify efforts to promote its policies and ideology to win the hearts of Tibetans — something it has been unable to achieve in the past. In any information war, if one side is not present, the other side has free rein.”
Beyond radio broadcasts, the Chinese authorities have tightened control over access to television in Tibet’s Ngari prefecture, where private satellite reception equipment has been banned. In Coqên County, more than 3,500 government-installed satellite television sets have already been set up in 17 villages, restricting rural and nomadic households’ access to external broadcasts. According to an official statement, the regime planned to install these satellites in all 74 county-level administrative divisions across the Tibet Autonomous Region by the end of 2025. Whether the project was carried out as planned is hard to verify precisely due to the regime’s crackdown on journalism.
The wider war on journalism
Since Chinese leader Xi Jinping came to power in early 2012, the Chinese Communist Party has drastically tightened its control over the media. Over the last decade, the Chinese regime has massively invested in developing media capable of reaching an international public: The state-owned television network CGTN broadcasts TV programmes in more than 160 countries, and its online news services are available in 43 languages. The ongoing legal and political uncertainty surrounding the future of USAGM-funded broadcasters has allowed the expansion of Chinese state media to continue unabated.
China is the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with 123 currently detained, and ranks 178th out of 180 countries and territories in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index.
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