I remember those days vividly. My father would gather us in the dead of night and begin tuning our old radio, searching for foreign broadcasts to find out what was happening in our homeland, where we lived. Due to the Chinese Communist Party’s strict media control and harsh punishment for those who sought outside information, this was an act of defiance.

At the time, the only source of information for the Uyghur people was propaganda in the state-run media. Yet, despite the risks, we longed to hear the truth. In our home in the capital, Urumqi, we had a microwave-sized radio with glowing tubes inside. My father would carefully fine-tune it by hand each night. Sometimes the signal was clear; other times it was full of static. But it was the only source of free news from the outside world.

He always told us to stay quiet and warned us never to mention to anyone that we listened to foreign broadcasts. “If the Chinese communists find out,” he said, “we will be severely punished.”

We thought we were alone in this. But by the late 1980s, we learned that many Uyghur families were secretly doing the same - tuning in to foreign voices in the dark.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, communist China not only survived but thrived, largely due to the failure of America and its Western allies to grasp the colossal threat this regime posed. Today, China has become a global superpower, and perhaps the most serious national security threat to the United States and the democratic world.

Like all totalitarian regimes, communist China rules through brute force and carefully curated propaganda designed to suppress the truth. From the Tiananmen Square Massacre to the COVID-19 pandemic, China manipulates public perception and rewrites history. For the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, information is both a weapon and a shield. Its total control over media ensures its rule remains unchallenged. But there is one thing the regime fears most: the truth.

The CCP does not just use propaganda to brainwash its people. It weaponizes it against perceived enemies, foreign and domestic. The success of its rule over 1.4 billion people for more than 75 years lies in its ability to craft and control the narrative.

That is why the establishment of the Uyghur Service at Radio Free Asia (RFA) in November 1998 was such a historic moment. At last, the long-suffering Uyghur people had a voice - one that could tell the world about the atrocities they had endured under communist Chinese rule since 1949. Uyghurs in the homeland rejoiced, seeing in America - the leader of the free world - a beacon of hope and justice. Unsurprisingly, China condemned this move, with its Foreign Ministry denouncing the creation of the first independent international Uyghur broadcasting service.

Under China’s brutal rule, the Uyghur people have never been allowed an independent voice. Anyone who dared to speak out against the communist regime was quickly silenced - labeled a “separatist,” “extremist,” or “terrorist,” and disappeared.

This has been especially true since 2017, when China began detaining an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in concentration camps and forcibly separating children from their parents to be sent to Chinese-run boarding schools. This systematic targeting of an entire ethnic group was eventually labeled as genocide and crimes against humanity by the first Trump administration. The European Parliament echoed this condemnation, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report stating that China’s actions may constitute crimes against humanity.

Much of this international recognition was made possible by the groundbreaking reporting of the RFA Uyghur Service. Despite the threat of retaliation against their families in China, Uyghur journalists at RFA fearlessly investigated and exposed the Orwellian surveillance state Beijing had imposed on their people.

The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has recognized the tremendous contributions made by the brave RFA Uyghur journalists. USAGM states on its website:

“Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service was the first to report on the implementation of a vast, high-tech security state in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) and the mass arbitrary detentions there sweeping up the mostly Muslim Uyghur population and other ethnic groups in the region in early 2017, when much of the world was unaware of the situation. Since then, RFA Uyghur has diligently and tirelessly continued to break key stories that bring to light major events, aspects, and developments of a massive humanitarian crisis. This crisis has undoubtedly achieved global notice and notoriety, in large part because of RFA’s Uyghur Service’s courageous journalism, despite risks and threats. RFA’s Uyghur Service has risen above and beyond and continues to stay on top of one of the most difficult, complex, and important stories of our lifetimes.”

The closure of the RFA Uyghur Service would be a tragedy. For a people still suffering under an ongoing genocide, it would extinguish a vital light of hope. China would seize the moment to tell Uyghurs: “You are forgotten. No country, not even America, cares anymore.” This would be a powerful psychological blow, not just to the Uyghurs, but to millions across China who have looked to the United States as a symbol of justice, democracy, and freedom.

If America lets the RFA Uyghur Service disappear, it risks abandoning an entire people and ceding the information war to a regime that thrives on lies.

The RFA Uyghur Service is worth saving - and worth every penny America has spent since its creation. Preserving it allows the U.S. to stand on moral high ground and push back against China’s disinformation campaigns. It ensures the truth can still be told about the genocide, the repression, and the resilience of a people who refuse to be erased.

Dr. Rishat Abbas is a pharmaceutical scientist based in the United States and president of Uyghur Academy International. The academy is a a global network of Uyghur intellectuals who raise awareness about the Uyghur genocide, and seek to counter CCP influence abroad, and preserve Uyghur language, culture and identity. The views expressed in this commentary are Dr. Abbas’ own.