(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

CHIANG: In the 2026 report, RSF found that press freedom is at a 25-year low. And over half of the world's countries are now classified as being in an either “difficult” or “very serious” situation. My first question - what are some major problems happening right now?

BIELAKOWSKA: At the RSF Press Freedom Index we evaluate media and press freedom around the world. This is the score that is indicated by five indicators. This year, one of the indicators that has fallen the most is the legal context, which means that a lot of countries - not only authoritarian countries, they're of course leading it, but also democracies - are using repressive laws such as national security, terrorism charges, or defamation or SLAPS to target media. This has been a trend we have seen in most of the countries, more than half countries around the world, that have seen this score fall quite significantly. 

CHIANG: In every country, you look at five indicators: political, economic, social, security, and legislative. How do you collect this data? Is it by survey or by interview?

BIELAKOWSKA: Actually, it’s a very good question, because whenever we release the index, some people - politicians mostly - [say] that this is something which is made up by ourselves. But this is actually based on a very specific methodology made with a group of world experts, media experts, and journalists around the world, which is based on a questionnaire of a few thousand questions.

The only score that is based on RSF [day to day] work is the security score. And it's related to the fact that RSF — except for monitoring the situation and advocating about the situation — we also have a database [on] violations against press freedom and against media outlets. So, it's the killing of journalists, it's harassment of journalists, it's detention of journalists.

CHIANG: Less than 1% of the world's population lives in countries that are classified as being in a “good” situation. And 25 years ago, the percentage was 20%. What pops out in the 2026 report is the emphasis on authoritarian censorship. It calls Asia Pacific as one of the most repressive regions in the world, in terms of press freedom. What have you seen in the past year, risks faced by journalists and the press in Asia Pacific?

BIELAKOWSKA: I must say - as you know - our bureau is based in Taiwan. We are covering 33 countries and territories. Our [daily] work is I think one of the most difficult among the teams at RSF, because this region is considered as one of the most dangerous regions for journalists.

We have the biggest jailer of journalists around the world, such as China. The next on the barometer and on the scale of detention is Myanmar and Vietnam. But also in the democracies that should protect press freedom, we have seen a growing number of legislation and policies that are designed to target the media outlets. 

When I'm speaking about it, I don't just think about countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, but also even in leading democracies. We have seen this type of problem in South Korea, for instance: defamation and online harassment against journalists. So this is really showing how difficult this region has become.

The situation has worsened since the index was launched in 2001. In 25 years, we have seen declining press freedom, and this region has started to be redder and redder. We have seen beacons of press freedom fall into the trap of authoritarianism. I'm speaking here for instance about Hong Kong. But also in democracies like the Philippines we have seen the usage of business laws like terrorism laws. The first journalist to be detained in democracy on these charges, for instance, in the Philippines Frenchie Mae Cumpio. So this is the reality that we face nowadays in this region. 

CHIANG: This is really a very short but powerful overview from Aleksandra. Speaking from your own experience, Aleksandra, in 2024 you were detained and banned from entering Hong Kong while on [your] way to cover the Jimmy Lai trial. Can you talk about that experience and, in general, what are some measures taken by authoritarian governments when it comes to silencing and harassing the foreign press?

BIELAKOWSKA: It's really difficult to express how much a place that has been the place for freedom. Because [Hong Kong] was the beacon of freedom, in many senses, but most notably, about press freedom. In many ways, Hong Kong was better than other democracies in the region. Even leading democracies in the region could drop so much within just the scope of six years right now. Because since 2020 National Security Law was passed, and this indeed extends not only to journalists, but also to civil society. 

As the RSF representative, I traveled three times after COVID-19 to Hong Kong. The first time was quite smooth. I could enter the court. I actually witnessed one of the hearings of very renewed media, Stand News. Two of its editors in chief were later sentenced to prison terms for just journalistic work under the seditious status. 

The second time, we attended Jimmy Lai's opening trial, moving together with his family in the court. At the time, I was being followed by the authorities, which was very clear. So they wanted to threaten us. 

The third time, when I tried to enter, I was barred from handling the passport. I was taken for interrogation, a few searches, and then, consequently, deported from Hong Kong. 

Then for a year, I was trying to – maybe reason is a bad word, because I think there's no way of reason with national security police, but – to get information about the reasons. And why, civil society is just trying to monitor press freedom — something that is upholding the Basic Law and something that the Hong Kong authorities are saying that they're respecting — is not allowed.

And interestingly, I was sent back with some materials. Everything was blacked out. Everything was censored, except my home address in Taiwan. So another form of intimidation by the Hong Kong authorities that shows you that if they want, they can reach you, even in Taiwan and other places. This is something we call transnational repression.  There have been at least 13 journalists that have been barred, detained at the arrival, or not allowed to get in on the visas from Hong Kong in the past five years. 

The recent case that we just published about was when one of the French journalists, Antoine Vedeilhe, was detained and barred from entering. They called him the security estate agent during the interrogation. And then the repression followed him to France when he was being harassed. His media received threats, and so on. His contacts on the ground and sources were also being targeted just because he was doing the work as a journalist. 

So we see the long arm of transnational repression. We knew about it coming from China, because we still think about these two systems a bit separate, in the sense that Hong Kong still has some freedom, in a sense that there are some few independent media still based in Hong Kong. They're trying to do work. But we see that it's going further and further into the direction of China, and it's actually marked with this year's rank. The situation is very grave, and journalists are facing daily pressure from the Hong Kong authority, but also from China National Security Police.

CHIANG: Aleksandra just mentioned the French journalist [who] was stopped from entering Hong Kong five months ago. This journalist, he didn't speak publicly about this experience until this week in April. Why do you think that some journalists, or some deported journalists, choose not to reveal their situation right away?

BIELAKOWSKA: Many things related to that. In this specific case, we actually met with him in Paris in November [2025]. So just after his detention, deportation, he met with me. He wanted to share this story. So we had a long discussion about what to do to ensure the safety of the sources that we work with and the staff that he works with. 

On this particular documentary, we didn't want to reach more and to extend the repression during that time, because we wanted this documentary to be finished. The reason we delayed was because the documentary will be released in May [2026], and it was finished a few weeks before we released this news.

So this is why I'm so grateful for Antoine to go on record. Because I've noticed that many journalists, despite the repression, despite what has been happening in the past five years, they had still this illusion that the situation in Hong Kong has not yet deteriorated to the levels that we can see in China, that the Hong Kong authority don’t have the abilities to actually target them inside and outside of the borders, when indeed they have. And why it's important to have this knowledge. 

Because if you decide to go to report on Hong Kong issues inside of the city, you need to prepare in advance. You cannot take the sources with you. You cannot have your work laptop. You shouldn't have all the documents with you, because Hong Kong authorities can take everything and search you. When Antoine was entering territory, all his belongings were searched in a very aggressive manner. They looked through all his files, all the documents. So that's why the story is so important. And I hope it's just a warning for others not to fall in the trap, and to protect themselves and their sources when they try to cover Hong Kong.

CHIANG: Hong Kong police, or even custom, they have the right to check your phones and also your laptop. When it comes to confidential documents, you have to be very careful when entering Hong Kong.

BIELAKOWSKA: So this is also a new law. [It] was passed in the past two years. This is why we say that there is a new legislation that's being introduced by the authorities in Asia Pacific, most notably, to target journalists. And they really are finding a new arsenal to target the media. And one of those things that was recently passed is this access to sources, to your equipment, to your phone. Now Hong Kong authorities have freedom to do whatever they want to you if you're in Hong Kong. 

CHIANG: China ranks 178 out of 180 on the RSF index. China is the world's largest jailer of journalists. There's 121 media professionals in jail at the moment. These include Zhang Zhan, when trying to expose the government's [COVID-19] crackdown in WuHan; Liu Hu, when trying to report on anti-corruption; and #MeToo activist Sophia Huang. Can you talk about China's performance on the index?

BIELAKOWSKA: It’s been quite stable, in a sense that it has been always at the bottom of the index especially since Xi Jinping took a [tighter] grip of power on CCP in 2016. We have seen that since he became the supreme leader and the only leader of the party. Because this is what he said, actually visiting propaganda media - I think it was Xinhua at the time - that the media should be the voice of the party [and] the messenger of the party itself. We have seen this through different means, through policies, repression, enhancing of the work of the police on the ground. 

Before 2016 it was still possible to do some type of independent reporting while being registered as a media. There were media outlets such as Caixin for instance, that were doing some independent reporting on health problems, social issues. 

This changed, and it's really changed. I would say the biggest crackdown started after COVID-19. They used restrictions for COVID-19 to further repress the media. There's no registered media right now in China that are allowed to report freely. If there is news that is being allowed somehow to circulate inside of China, it is because the Chinese authorities are allowing this. 

It doesn't mean there's no independent reporters. Yes, there are. They work from the underground. They use pseudonyms. The only one, very interesting example, I think is the person you just mentioned, Liu Hu, who was detained more than a month ago for reporting on local corruption. He was working with one of the strongest independent media at the time. And actually he was released. And what was very shocking to me actually, to see that we managed to break the news as RSF, in collaboration with other civil society. We informed the international media about it. There was a huge coverage about what's going on. He was detained, and then he was released on bail.

At the same time many, many, many other journalists are still detained in prisons. Many of them are disappearing. We don't know where they are. We don't know what's going on with them. There's a huge scale of abuse against political prisoners and journalists in prisons, and many of them are being mistreated, tortured by the authorities. 

You mentioned Zhang Zhan. She broke the story about COVID-19. Everyone needed the story to appear because she was the one alerting the world about what is happening in the city of Wuhan. She was detained. She was subjected to four years imprisonment. She almost died in prison due to mistreatment, but also the partial hunger strike. She was arrested again after [her] release, because she didn't stop to report on human rights violations in the country. 

This is the reality we face right now: if you want to be an independent journalist, you can try. But if they find out who you are, not only are you in danger - Your family is prosecuted. Your friends are called to interrogations. Your parents might be pressured to ask you to stop reporting on specific issues. They even go to the lengths to target media outside of [its] borders. I think the most notable cases are, of course, of the Uyghur journalists based in the U.S. There are journalists from Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, where [their] families have been detained for [their] work, their friends have been detained for the work that they do. They've been pressured. They cannot go back. They cannot have any contact. Their parents, families, cannot leave the country when they seek, and so on. 

They need support because the regime is trying to pressure them to stop the independent reporting. 

CHIANG: Are there new tactics over the past year for authoritarian regimes to restrict or repress independent reporting? 

BIELAKOWSKA: There are two things. One, of course, is tighter measures. We have seen this in Vietnam. A new press freedom law that was just passed. There was a new congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and the state media right now is in the hands of the Communist Party itself. So they are reporting to the supreme leader of the party and the party officials.

But also we have seen this through different tactics and measures. It's really going beyond borders. We have seen that China is so blunt in repression that they target people in Europe, in the United States. They harass people online, even international media. We mentioned Antoine Vedeilhe, but there was a case of two French journalists who were reporting on the Uyghur forced labor last year in China. [They have] been targeted from every possible corner through online harassment, doxxing. They've been followed when they leave China. The fixer has been targeted, and so on. 

So this is the reality that we face right now, and China's the leading role in it. But of course, Vietnam, they manage sometimes to kidnap people from other countries, from Europe, for instance. Many journalists that we support, cannot leave the country. So they illegally, or semi-legally, go to Thailand. They then ask us to support relocating them to a third location. We need to keep them in safe houses. We need to make sure that nobody knows where they are, and that they move to a third country. Because China has a means to send agents and kidnap people from Southeast Asia. 

We have seen this with Gui Minhai, who has been disappeared since 2020. We had no updates about his whereabouts, about his health. He was the publisher of one of the most renowned bookstores in Hong Kong. He's a Swedish citizen. China was so blunt as to send state agents to take him from Thailand back to China, and then convict him for trumped-up charges without any evidence. 

And the thing is, the democracies are really failing because nobody is speaking up against this enough. This needs to be really targeted with firm actions, with not only statements, but real policy. So far, China's allowed to do whatever they want, and that's why they are really going further and further to target us, also our homes in Europe, United States, or Taiwan, or other democracies in the region.

CHIANG: Another observation from the report is the impact of PRC laws. Neighboring countries around China are learning and copying PRC’s repressive laws. These are the countries like Vietnam, Myanmar, Pakistan and Cambodia. What are some examples you have found

BIELAKOWSKA: So I think the most notable one for us was Vietnam this year. We've been quite working on it extensively, because this was a huge change. And when you see this legislation — and Myanmar, actually, the two countries which are leading on it — there was also the special law that was passed by the Myanmar junta that criminalizes and makes access to VPNs, and to protect your sources and so on, more and more difficult. What is interesting, when you look at these countries in the region, also Cambodia and other countries, they really take China as the lead.

So they use the legislation model. They use very similar regulations to create their own basis of the legislation to repress independent media and journalists in these countries. They really take an example from how China managed to create the Great Firewall, censor everything inside of the country, but also to target the people who are trying to speak up and be critical, and open about what has happened inside the government in this authoritarian regime.

The problem that we face sometimes is that we know that this collaboration exists. We know that China is sending officials, people to learn from, but it's really difficult to find examples. This is also why we have launched specific projects to monitor that. Something called “Propaganda Monitor”  [that’s] raising awareness about these practices. 

There have been no attempts yet to really see the whole scope of this type of collaboration between the different regimes in the region. But again, it's not just the authoritarian countries. Very often, democracies are also using these examples. And it's really terrifying to see how that, to build democracy needs years; to crack democracy, you need just one night and one day, and then everything is gone. 

We have been seeing this on the map. It's getting darker and darker. Even in Europe, even in countries that should be the beacon of press freedom and exemplar, the United States, for instance, we have seen what has been happening with the Trump administration in the past year. European countries, we have seen a huge, vast of abuses and attacks against press freedom, also in democracies that should help to fight back.

CHIANG: We talked about the Propaganda Monitor. It tracks how the PRC is trying to shape narratives on how countries write about China in its local media. It targets countries with fragile media environments. It uses PRC embassies to pressure local governments. And it covers up human rights abuses by China. 

BIELAKOWSKA: This project is designed to give examples and real investigations to these attempts around the world. Because China isn’t only focusing on what is happening inside the country, but really languishing the money for propaganda. It's through international networks, such as CGTN or Xinhua, that is signing agreements with media around the world that very often are not aware of the extent to which, it's just simply propaganda by the CCP.

But there's many other tactics China's using: advertisements in the media, training for media outlets - there've been many, many capacity-building trips organized by the Chinese state.

I remember we reported a few years ago even about an app they created for media outlets. There were means such as the extent of the online presence when they try to promote AI tools in different media, and then censoring information through DeepSeek in some specific partners of China.

There's pressure coming from [Chinese] embassies. For instance, we have documented this in Denmark. The Danish media we interviewed [had] been actually receiving a lot of letters and soft threats for them to stop reporting, especially on Taiwan issues. Because this is what China's trying to target the most. 

But also in the Philippines, there was an instance very recently about a huge-scale campaign against an independent media that was reporting on disinformation coming from China actors. Then the embassy itself has been engaging in that, which was quite insane, with the deputy spokesperson targeting a journalist herself, putting her personal information and saying she's spreading fake news, and then accusing others of working - as always China does - with NED, CIA, and others.

So we have been seeing this quite a lot. It's everywhere, from Africa to South America, to Latin America, to even the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. I just came from Thailand, and people first told me, “Oh, we have seen so much of China's presence.” But then they're like, “But China Daily is publishing here, and then everyone is reading the newspaper. All the advertisements are coming from the Chinese state. China's inviting us for the paid trips and cover everything.”

We have seen this in the Pacific Islands, actually Solomon Islands, when journalists told us that they were given equipment for free, and then China in return was asking not to publish on specific subjects. Or to refrain from mentioning Taiwan, or calling Taiwan a Chinese province, and so on. So really, they make a lot of effort to do the same in the Caribbeans. The main subject, of course, for them, is to make sure there will be no independent reporting or balanced reporting about Taiwan’s presence. 

CHIANG: It's a wide range of countries that are targeted. So China's goal, apart from removing Taiwan's visibility in the world, do you think they have other goals when it comes to propaganda?

BIELAKOWSKA:  Interesting question, why hesitate for a second? Because why is it so difficult for us to actually report on it and gather this evidence? It is already quite successful, but why is it taking so much time and fact checking? 

Because the difference between, for instance, Russian propaganda and China propaganda, is that Russia is using a very aggressive language, trying to target specific people quite openly. China is also doing this in some scope. They also do this type of practice. We know, for instance, proxies influencers by China on social media platforms who are working for state media outlets.

But they sometimes use a softer approach. The ways to make an illusion that China can be a partner for the democratic world, but also for other countries, even authoritarian countries in the region. And to make the illusion that China wants to support. Well indeed, they first want to use these countries. Second of all, the main reasons to hide all the human rights violations and abuses and how repressive the system has become under Xi Jinping in the last 10 years. 

CHIANG: Let's move on to a different group of countries before we wrap up and move on to Taiwan. So there are countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. They are, according to the report, categorized as less authoritarian, “more democratic environments,” what are the problems that these countries are facing?

BIELAKOWSKA: First of all, it's important to emphasize that [Asia Pacific] is one of the most dangerous regions for journalists. 21 out of 32 countries assessed by RSF across Asia Pacific are currently in the “difficult” or “very serious” situation. So, the usage of draconian laws, legislations, and even democracies very often are taking inspiration from authoritarian countries in the region. 

One really good example that RSF launched a campaign for last year is the Philippines. We had this illusion, for a time, that since the fall of the Duterte administration — he was one of the most repressive presidents in the world — we would see positive change. He's right now facing charges in the International Criminal Court for killings of civilians in the so-called “drug war” that he implemented. Many journalists died during this drug war. At the time, we thought that the Marcos administration would bring positive change.

When we look at the numbers and the cases in the country, we have seen that more and more media are being targeted with abusive laws. We have seen that anti-terrorism laws are being used to prosecute journalists. Frenchie Mae Cumpio, the first journalist prosecuted under these laws, is 26 years old. Very young and very courageous reporting on military abuses in her region, in Tacloban City. She has been sentenced to more than 18 years in prison for reporting on these issues, despite the huge advocacy efforts we really had to uphold.

But she's not the only one. There's another journalist we've been supporting, Deo Montesclaros, who's faced with a warrant due to his reporting and his work as a journalist, exactly because of that. The Philippines is using something called “red-tagging.” If you are trying to speak up in a critical way about local authorities, or high-level, country-level authorities, then you're targeted with accusations of collaboration with Communists and with terrorist groups. This has been seen quite widely.

We see this as a tactic. Because the Philippines wanted to be taken off the list of countries that are not resolving terrorist cases, so the easiest way is not to actually target the people who are responsible for it; it's to target the people who are the easiest targets: civil society workers, volunteers, even opposition leaders, and, exactly, journalists.

But the Philippines is not the only country like this. We have seen vast violence against the media in Indonesia and a lack of protection for media outlets in Indonesia in the past year. There have been at least 40 journalists who have been assaulted in different ways during protests and non-protests in Indonesia within just 12 months, which is an insane amount of harassment and violations against the media in such a democracy in the region.

We have seen threats. In one of the most independent media outlets in the country, Tempo, journalists and the media outlet received threats. One journalist got the cut-off head of a pig delivered to the media outlet to threaten them not to report on specific subjects.

In Thailand, for instance, we have seen a growing number of defamation cases against the media. Anyone who's reporting on the monarchy can be next to be targeted by the authorities. Thailand collaborated quite freely with Vietnam, with China, allowing them to repress the independent media that are trying to hide it for the exile. We've been trying to support them at the time.

Malaysia, SLAPPs defamation, very well known case of British journalist who was sentenced in absentia for her reporting on the Sultan family. She had no right to appeal without being there. She cannot go back to Malaysia, because she might be targeted for her work and arrested upon arrival, so she cannot even represent herself in court. She's afraid of the red notices, because Malaysia, this year, started to use the practice of extradition treaties and red notices by INTERPOL to target critics. 

There was one political commentator, his name is Hunter, who was detained in Thailand for some time because Malaysia had issued a warrant against him. He was foreign journalist, he's not even a Malaysian citizen. 

CHIANG: SLAPP is short for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” This is a method that political or business elites use to bankrupt journalists and create a culture of intimidation. 

CHIANG: So now, I think we've covered a lot in Asia-Pacific, but we haven't been to the main part where we are right now, which is Taiwan. Last year, Taiwan ranked 24th in the World Press Freedom Index. This year, it's fallen four places to be ranked 28th. What happened?

BIELAKOWSKA: Something's actually happened. We have seen a decline in press freedom. Taiwan is still the beacon of press freedom, media freedom around the world. We don't see any pressure on the media. We don't see so much online harassment. Journalists feel quite safe when conducting work in Taiwan. So in this sense, we see quite positive changes. 

But on the other hand, we have seen a huge political polarization that is impacting media outlets. Sensationalism that is impacting media outlets and journalists. Very poor economic situation of the media. We have seen what some specific parties within the current Parliament try to do with public media. 

RSF, for years, has been advocating for actually extending the budget for public media. Taiwan public media [has] one of the lowest budgets, comparing to other democracies. I don't remember the number correctly, it's 1% of what, or 4% of what the South Korea broadcaster had, and 0.4% of what the BBC, so the British broadcaster, has as money. 

So how can they fight China propaganda? How can they promote independent narratives and independent reporting? And the quality of journalism we see in Taiwan when they are not allowed to do it because of budget constraints they face nowadays? The situation we have seen this year was quite - we can say alarming, in the sense that it could even go into a longer extent.

But this is not the only thing. We have seen the stagnation of the National Communication Commission (NCC) that has a lot of very important responsibilities to ensure that there is, again, impartiality and independence, and that licenses are being renewed. So this is something that needs to be resolved, because, again, press freedom is also national security for Taiwan.

We have seen disinformation campaigns in the past. China is really enhancing its strategies to target the media and the public. Not only on social media, also on the media themselves, because of the pressure, because of the lack of resources. Sometimes they are not fact-checking information. They're publishing very fast without verifying the sources. Then they sometimes withdraw the information. This is creating a really huge problem also for national security. 

This is something we've been advocating for years, for the government, for the Parliament to remember to see this as a problem. Because we don't speak just about press freedom here. We also speak about the security of Taiwan in the longer perspective.

CHIANG: Disinformation is one of the gray zone tactics used by China to influence the Taiwanese public. As you mentioned, it's very important for countries to support its media to fight and combat Chinese disinformation. These disinformation tactics — it's been going on for quite some time - it’s still listed as the top concern in the annual report. How does RSF analyze this differently this year?

BIELAKOWSKA: Of course, this has been ongoing for many years. It intensifies during very fragile periods for Taiwan — so during elections and during major political events. China is getting better and better. I would say that China is using Taiwan as its first target to test its capacities that can then extend further to other democracies. It’s, in a way, a laboratory for them to test what can be achieved and what is not possible.

What we've seen this year is a real intensification of efforts. The problem is that all the burden of fighting disinformation right now is on the civil society. Yes, the government has acknowledged many instances. Yes, they have supported civil society with amazing think tanks and groups working on this — IORG, Doublethink Lab. There are also international NGOs, like China Digital Times and China Media Project. There are so many groups trying to look into these subjects, but it's not enough to warn the public. We need more media literacy. We need more debunking of fake news by the authorities themselves, and we need them to structure comprehensive policy and plans against this.

This is because in times of crisis — and when we say crisis, RSF is never even saying war because we know it is probably almost impossible for China to go to war - we mean economic blockade or major political crisis. Then these loopholes will be used, and these openings will be exploited to shape the context and try to influence the public. And we see that in some ways they succeed, because polarization in Taiwan is growing more and more, and it's really concerning for Taiwanese society to become divided in this way.

With the lack of media trust, this year Taiwan again fell in media trust to 30% out of 100, which is one of the lowest among democracies around the world. Last year, it was 33%. I'm not surprised that the public is not trusting the media anymore, when there's such a division between them, such pressure from media owners, and such a lack of resources for the media.

This is a huge problem that we face, and I hope that at some point it will be seen as a consensus, and we'll sit together with different political parties that will start speaking with each other and seeing this as something that needs to be adjusted and done.

RSF has been doing this advocacy for at least seven or eight years now. Whenever we meet with politicians - we meet with the policy-making body, legislators - they always say that there is total press freedom in Taiwan, that nothing is a problem, and that we cannot regulate the media, because then it would create opposition within the country. 

By regulating the media, there can also be self-regulation, by the way. We also believe that the media themselves should take the initiative, stand together and try to fight these very dangerous trends that can impact not only the quality, and impact press freedom, but most notably, national security of Taiwan itself.

CHIANG: These problems, including low media trust, this is also mentioned in last year's report. These problems, including disinformation, low media trust, it's all connected. So I think we really need all stakeholders, including civil societies, governments, and the public, to stand together and fight against disinformation, and also fight for press freedom.

CHIANG: What has been your favorite part of working with RSF?

BIELAKOWSKA: For me, it's really a combination of things. I work with a quite small team, but we also have 21 correspondents. We do advocacy with different international organizations and institutions. This year I'm leading two campaigns for RSF: one global campaign on China, which includes China investigations, “Propaganda Monitor” work, and cases of concern such as Zhang Zhan, Sophia Huang Xue Qing, and Jimmy Lai. But we also do a lot of engagement with the media. We do capacity building for them, and we give assistance.

For me personally, the most important part is working with journalists on the ground. I’m reached every day by journalists from China, Hong Kong, and even foreign media. Sometimes we need to help someone relocate. Sometimes I need to speak with embassies of democratic countries in Myanmar, Vietnam, and other places to ensure that someone will receive the medical support they need, because of violations, torture, or mistreatment they faced in prison. Sometimes we succeed. There were cases of Vietnamese journalists in the past year when, after RSF intervention, we managed to get someone access to medical help and the support they need most.

There was recently a case of Myanmar journalist Shin Daewe, a former Radio Free Asia journalist who we advocated for over at least a year, when we've been engaging different actors to ensure her release. She was released last year, which, again, shows this is one of the most dangerous regions in the world and one of the most difficult contexts to work in. And to have someone released before the end of the verdict from prison in Myanmar is, for me, one of the biggest moments of happiness.

Sometimes we manage to raise and inform the public. With Liu Hu, we broke the news to the international media. Everyone covered it, and he was released on bail. Sometimes we manage to find someone, because when Zhang Zhan was disappeared, she raised the alarm, and we worked together to put pressure on the authorities to acknowledge that she was being re-detained and held in one of the prisons.

So for me, what is important is to work with lawyers, families, and journalists who are being detained or harassed and who need our support. Because on so many levels, they are left alone, and they feel desperate—not only for attention to what is happening to them, but also for protection and for authorities and others to help them.

Sometimes we do not succeed, like with Frenchie, which was heartbreaking for RSF, for CPJ (Committee to Project Journalists) and others, and I hope that we will see her free one day. 

We also work with exile media. We support them with institutional support. At least a dozen Hong Kong media outlets that left Hong Kong — we give them equipment and money to keep operating. We give them the capacity to protect themselves through different means: giving them VPN keys, mirror links, and access to important resources. We also have a resource website created for them.

So it’s a difficult fight, but we see small success stories with individual people that we can support. And I just hope that this work will have more fruits in the future and that we can see more success stories like this and happy endings. But of course, with what we see in the decline of press freedom, we really need to unite as democracies.

Actually, I also think we need Taiwan’s support in this. Taiwan is a beacon of press freedom right now in the Asia-Pacific region. But it cannot only end with supporting the media on the ground. We need a safe haven for journalists. It is very difficult, for instance, for me to relocate people from Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia to other places, because they can be extradited to third countries. They face pressure and harassment. And Taiwan is becoming, in a way, the only safe space in the region. We need more support from the Taiwanese government. Asylum law for people like this to be having a safe space and and way to keep working. Taiwan could be and should be the hub for not only international media.

This year was specifically difficult. Because of U.S. [funding cut], there was a huge impact on media outlets from the region. We have seen a lot of media shutters that almost fell down and couldn't keep up with reporting because of the lack of the resources. 

And again, democracies, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, they should be the ones jumping in and supporting them, because if there's no independent information inside of the region, their own freedom and democracy's freedom is being targeted as the next. This is also the case for them to keep their own national security, but also to protect themselves in face of  extension of the censorship and targeting of the authoritarian regimes in this region.

CHIANG: Thank you so much, Aleksandra. 

BIELAKOWSKA: Thank you so much. 

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Episode Credit: Host, Zack Chiang. Producer, Emily Y. Wu. Production intern, Albert Chang-Yoo and Teagan Wangaard. Audio editing, Wayne Tsai. Transcription, Mia Huang.