The Chinese state media gladly welcomed the Trump administration's decision to cut down government spending for news outlets Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia, which had a record of reporting on authoritarian regimes. 

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The Global Times, a Chinese daily English-language tabloid and Chinese Communist party mouthpiece reacted happily to the cuts by the US administration. 

The VOA has an "appalling track record" when it came to China-related reporting, the Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.

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The Chinese state media slammed the organisations, saying that now it "has been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag".

This comes after US President Donald Trump signed an order, instructing USAGM to reduce its operations to the bare minimum mandated by the law, accusing VOA of being "radical" and "anti-Trump". 

The decision made by the Trump administration affects thousands of employees, as nearly 1300 staff have been put on paid leave at VOA alone since Friday's executive order. 

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“From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s ‘overcapacity’, almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it,” Global Times said in the article.

Moreover, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party, the Beijing Daily, also published a column welcoming the cuts. 

However, the White House defended its decision, saying that it will "ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda". 

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'Reward to dictators'

RFA president Bay Fang said that the attempt to close down the RFA was “a reward to dictators and despots”, said, “including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked in the information space."

“Today’s notice not only disenfranchises the nearly 60 million people who turn to RFA’s reporting on a weekly basis to learn the truth, but it also benefits America’s adversaries at our own expense.”

The move would "hand a victory to the Chinese Communist Party, which harbors a particular disdain for free media and truth” and would “embolden Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian regime in Pyongyang, where information control reaches unprecedented levels”.

It further said that a termination of its service would "betray the very principles upon which America stands". 

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(With inputs from agencies)