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RCI responds to China in crisis

Broadcast Date: June 19, 1989

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Army shut down weeks of government protests with a deadly show of force in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Radio Canada International responded by speeding up its plans to launch a Chinese-language service. Broadcaster Xia Qiang says Chinese listeners will be receptive to RCI in the wake of the massacre. "They want to seek the truth from foreign media," he tells a CBC reporter in this clip.

RCI responds to China in crisis

• Radio Canada International began broadcasting to Asia in 1984 when it added a weekly program in Japanese. Rather than using its shortwave transmitters in Canada, RCI sent its programs by satellite to a receiving station in Japan. From there the program went out by shortwave across the country.

• In 1989, RCI made an agreement with the Japanese public broadcaster, NHK, to use some of its shortwave transmitters to launch RCI service to the Asia-Pacific region. This service was provided in five languages: English, French, Ukrainian, Russian and Japanese.
• Listeners in China were first introduced to RCI in 1988 via its weekly program Everyday English, broadcast on local stations in three Chinese cities. Regular shortwave broadcasts began after the massacre in Tiananmen Square.

• In 1990 RCI added Arabic-language news and commentary to its regular English and French broadcasts to the Middle East as the Persian Gulf conflict began.
• A 1991 coup attempt against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev brought urgency to Russian broadcasts as well. See an additional clip about how RCI responded to serve Soviet citizens looking for objective news about the coup.

• Earlier in 1991 RCI was hit by a round of government cuts that affected every department and service, including the CBC. According to this additional clip, the cuts forced RCI to reduce its language services.
• RCI's budget was cut by 40 per cent and staff was reduced by about 50 per cent.
• In the wake of the cuts RCI turned to domestic CBC programming such as As It Happens to fill time. The only programming produced by RCI staff was news broadcasts.

• In 1963 a group of shortwave listeners founded the Radio Canada Shortwave Club. It was the start of a long relationship between RCI and its listeners.
• One program popular with shortwave fans was DX Digest, (later called SWL Digest), which consisted of reviews of shortwave equipment. The budget cuts of 1991 brought the show to an end.
• Another link to listeners, the program Listeners' Corner, was also cut in 1991.

• Many avid listeners felt RCI simply wasn't the same after the budget cuts of 1991. "The impact on the air was immediate," listener John Figliozzi of New York state told the magazine Broadcast Times in 1994. "RCI's voice had immediately become hollow, losing its uniquely personable nature. Quite frankly, I don't listen to RCI much anymore."

RCI responds to China in crisis

Medium: Television

Program: CBC Television News

Broadcast Date: June 19, 1989

Guest(s): Xia Qiang, Li Zhao

Reporter: Dennis Marinakis

Duration: 2:09

Last updated:
Aug. 11, 2009