The International Herald Tribune, December 28, 1996

Beijing - Three months ago, after a long debate in Congress, the United States started Radio Free Asia to "confront tyranny" in East Asia, in the words of its congressional sponsors.

But the shortwawe radio network, which began operations in Chinese three months ago over the objection of several governments in the region that critized it as a throwback to the Cold War, seems to be off to a shaky start.

U.S. diplomats in China joke that Radio Free Asia is a "stealth" radio network because few people know the frequencies on which it broadcasts or the location of its transmitters.

Those who have found Radio Free Asia's frequencies say it is often not possible to pick up the signal. It is not that the Chinese are jamming it; the signal is simply too weak to reach much of its intended audience.

The network has been forced to use transmitters as far away as Armenia and in Tajikistan, on the border with China's vast western Xinjiang Uygur region, where many listeners do not understand the Mandarin Chinese broadcasts.

"I had a frequency list and couldn't hear anything", said Rob Laing, a diplomat with the U.S. Information Service at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

"None of us has heard it", he added, referring to attempts by diplomats in Beijing and Shanghai to detect the station. " We have to take their word for it that it is out there".

Since Radio Free Asia went on the air Sept.29, it has been broadcasting in Chinese for two hours each day, at 7 A.M. and 11. P.M. A Tibetan-language program began this month, and broadcasts in North Korea and Vietnam are planned.

Some Chinese in Beijing report having heard some broadcasts in October, but not since then.

Most Chinese who listen to foreign radio broadcasts are devoted to the BBC, the Voice of America and Radio France International. Each has boistered its Asian programming in the last two years even as budgets for overseas broadcasting have declined.

The appearance of Radio Free Asia, therefore, is being regarded as an affront to the existing networks, especially the Voice of America. Many career diplomats in China see Radio Free Asia as needlessly confrontational at a time when Washington seeks to reduce conflict with Beijing.

In Washington, the station's vice president for programming, Daniel Southerland, insisted that the network's signal was getting through and said he had letters from Chinese listeners to prove it. He also said the International Broadcasting Bureau, which serves the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, had "monitoring stations" in China that had picked up the radio's signal. He attributed any poor reception to "local jamming of a neighborhood".

But U.S. officials in China say they are unaware of any monitoring stations and doubt Mr Southerland's claim that "local jamming" is behind Radio Free Asia's disappearance from the airwawes.

Whether or not such technical problems turn out to be anything more than start-up glitches, more serious concerns have arisen.

A prominent Chinese intellectual, Dai Qing, abruptly dissociated herself from Radio Free Asia this fall, accusing the network of putting her in jeopardy of arrest by presenting a confrontational image to the Chinese government.

Miss Dai had signed on to work for the radio operation in April as its China-based correspondent when it was to be called Asia Pacific Network. But in the final stages of congressional approval last summer, powerful members of Congress insisted that the name be changed to Radio Free Asia, which is more provocative to Chinese ears.

The name change was followed by promotional statements by Mr. Southerland and others at Radio Free Asia that Miss Dai would be among the contributors to the program, along with prominent Chinese dissidents living in the United States, such as Liu Binyan, who advocates the downfall of China's Communist government.

These developments put Miss Dai, China's most prominent female journalist, in fear for her safety, she said.

"Any day, if the police were to come to take me, I would not be surprised at all", said Miss Dai, 52, who spent nearly a year in prison following China's military crackdown on the prodemocracy movement near Tienanmen Square in 1989.

Miss Dai's supporters have been swift to criticize Radio Free Asia for its lack of discresion in continuing to pursue Miss Dai as a contributor after the name change.

"I think it is unconscionable to put people at risk, knowing how the Chinese government viewed this enterprise from the very beginning", said John Kamm, a Hong Kong business leader who has advised the administration of President Bill Clinton on human rights policy and who regularly travels to Beijing to seek the release of political prisoners. "One cannot deny the reality that the Chinese government viewed this as a threat and as an instrument to overthrow the rule of the Communist Party".

Geremie Barme, a China scholar at Australian National University and a close friend of Miss Dai's, said he tried to discourage her from getting involved with the station, feeling that she underestimated the seriousness of the risk.

"The organization should have taken more initiative to protect her", he said. "You know she is just a sitting duck".

Mr Southerland, a former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post, defended Radio Free Asia's actions in the case of Miss Dai but said that he and other network executives gave little thought to the impact of their dealings with a prominent Chinese dissident who lives under the eye of China's Ministry of State Security.

Instead, Mr Southerland indicated that his primary concern throughout was to ensure that any programming Miss Dai contributed would be journalistically balanced. "We always figured it would be difficult to deal with contributors inside China", he said.