With VOA silenced, China tightens its grip on Tibet

For more than 30 years, Voice of America has provided accurate, uncensored news to Tibetans, countering Chinese propaganda and disinformation, and ensuring the United States has a credible voice in a region where information is tightly controlled by Beijing.

At the start of 2025, VOA’s Tibetan Service was broadcasting 204 hours of audio and video reports each week in the Tibetan language. Its programs reached audiences in one of the most censored regions of the world — the Tibetan Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China — as well as Tibetans living in exile, mainly in India, Nepal and Bhutan. However, since President Donald Trump issued his March 14 executive order that effectively began dismantling VOA, the Tibetan Service has stopped all broadcasts and is not producing any content on digital media.

Freedom House describes Tibet as one of the least-free regions of the world, with China’s control of traditional and social media even more strict than in Han Chinese areas of the country. People in the mainly Buddhist territory face periodic deliberate internet blackouts, are subjected to confiscation and searching of personal communication devices, and risk harsh punishments for sharing politically sensitive news.

Despite the difficult conditions, VOA was making an impact in Tibet. Because of the Chinese government’s near total control of the media, audience research is impossible within Tibet. However, VOA’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was able to survey individuals who had left the country. Fifteen percent of refugees confirmed they regularly received news from VOA when they were inside Tibet, despite the dangers of doing so. Once in exile, nearly three quarters of refugees said they received news from VOA at least once a week.

VOA’s Tibetan Service provided a unique window into the United States, sharing America’s democratic values and analysis on U.S.-China relations and their implications for Tibet. It provided coverage of key Tibet-related U.S. legislation, including the Resolve Tibet Act that passed in 2024, which requires the U.S. to counter Chinese disinformation about Tibet, including falsehoods about Tibet’s history and institutions.

For decades, VOA’s Tibetan Service reported on the Tibetan government-in-exile and the region’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled his home in Tibet in 1959 for exile in India. On VOA’s 70th anniversary in 2012, the Dalai Lama said in a video message, “I remember clearly the night of March 17, 1959, when we escaped from Norbulinka Palace in Lhasa. On that day, and the days following on our journey to India, my security chief listened to the Voice of America broadcasts every day for news updates on Tibet.” He said that VOA’s Tibetan Service, which debuted in 1991, “has played a vital role for Tibetans by providing unbiased news both good and bad.”

In his video message, the Dalai Lama said VOA’s Tibetan broadcasts are relied on by listeners in Tibet, the Himalayan region and Mongolia as well as Tibetans living in exile.

Without VOA, the world faces an even deeper information black hole about Tibet’s human rights situation. VOA’s Tibetan Service had long made human rights one of its core reporting priorities, including exposing China’s vast colonial boarding school system in Tibet while also giving a platform to human rights advocates, former political prisoners, artists and writers whose voices are silenced inside Tibet.

After VOA’s Tibetan Service went dark in March, a coalition of 146 Tibetan organizations worldwide appealed to VOA’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to fully restore it as well as Tibetan programming from Radio Free Asia. Lobsang Yangtso, the Asia regional coordinator at the International Tibet Network, said, “The strategic importance of the VOA and the RFA Tibetan broadcasts cannot be overstated. For decades, they have served as a vital pillar in countering Beijing’s narrative and preserving Tibetan language and cultural identity in the face of relentless assimilation policies.”

The Chinese government has moved quickly to expand its reach in Tibet. Just days after VOA’s Tibetan Service was silenced, Chinese state media, including Kangba TV, along with popular Chinese influencers inside Tibet, launched Facebook channels and live-streams to capitalize on VOA’s absence. The Chinese government also expanded its state-controlled Tibetan-language channels. Without VOA, audiences in Tibet are stuck in a “news desert,” unable to access timely and accurate information about Tibet, the U.S. and the wider world.