Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Kim Urge Congressional Action to Restore Funding for Radio Free Asia Amid Funding Lapse
WASHINGTON – Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Rep. Young Kim, Member of the Select Committee and Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, today sent a letter to Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro urging full and direct congressional appropriations to restore funding for Radio Free Asia (RFA) and similar journalistic initiatives that counter CCP propaganda and repression.
In their letter, the members of the Select Committee called RFA and related U.S. government media programs “a critical and exceptionally cost-effective soft power tool to compete with the CCP’s attempt to repress its people and replace American leadership worldwide.” He emphasized that RFA and its digital brands BenarNews and WHYNOT (歪脑) “empower populations living under repressive regimes in the Indo-Pacific, including in the People’s Republic of China,” and “deliver truth-telling, incisive news that directly competes with the CCP’s billion-dollar global propaganda and disinformation campaign.”
“Radio Free Asia has been one of America’s most effective tools for exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s abuses and defending the truth in a region where Beijing is working relentlessly to suppress it,” said Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi. “Letting RFA go dark would hand the CCP an information victory it has not earned. Congress must fully fund RFA so the United States can continue standing up for human rights and a free and open Indo-Pacific.
"The Chinese Communist Party is waging a ruthless information war to expand its control, silence dissent, and extinguish the promise of America,” said Rep Kim. “Radio Free Asia is one of our strongest tools to push back on Beijing. If we retreat from this fight now, Xi Jinping wins by default. We can’t let that happen, and we must ensure RFA stays on the front lines defending truth and freedom in the Indo-Pacific.”
The pair highlighted RFA’s proven track record in exposing human rights abuses and CCP disinformation:
- RFA was the first to inform the world about the mass, extrajudicial internments of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang—findings that were foundational to the U.S. government’s genocide determination.
- RFA has established a specialized unit to track and map PRC propaganda targeting the United States, Taiwan, and regional partners.
- Its investigative teams have revealed PRC secret police stations operating in the U.S. and Europe, and its Pacific Service has documented the PRC’s resource exploitation and malign influence in vulnerable island nations.
They warned that “due to attempts to cancel RFA’s grant agreement and the current lapse in appropriations, RFA has had to lay off 80 percent of its domestic workforce and is now being forced to stop publications effective October 31, 2025.” They cautioned that “the void created by RFA’s inability to operate is actively being filled by the CCP,” noting that Beijing has already expanded radio frequencies to reach Uyghur and Tibetan audiences previously served by RFA’s independent reporting.
The members concluded by urging Congress to “fully and directly appropriate funds to Radio Free Asia in Fiscal Year 2026 and beyond,” calling such investment “essential to ensure that the United States can effectively compete with CCP propaganda, stand up for human rights, and support a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Read the letter here.
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