RFA was created to provide reporting to China, North Korea, and other countries in the region with a heavily restricted press. In recent years, it has reported extensively on issues highly sensitive to Beijing authorities and other autocratic leaders in Asia.

When asked about Trump’s decision during a daily news briefing, China’s foreign ministry said it did not comment on the US government’s domestic policies.

However, the spokeswoman Mao Ning: “I think it is no secret that some of the US media you mentioned have a notorious track record in reporting on China.”

In an editorial, state-backed nationalist tabloid Global Times went further — describing Voice of America as a “lie factory.”

“The so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag,” it said.

“The demonizing narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughingstock of the times,” it added.

China has frequently criticized Western media reporting on the country as “biased,” and it heavily restricts the operations of domestic news outlets.

Thorny topics covered by RFA and its fellow outlets included China’s alleged large-scale human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as the crackdown on democratic activists in Hong Kong.

Notably, Radio Free Asia’s reporting is published in a wide range of Chinese languages, including Tibetan, Uyghur, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

Related news stories are heavily censored in China’s domestic media environment — and foreign reports on the subjects are blocked online.