阅读中文版本 | Dalam Bahasa Indonesia

The history of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a story of Australia's relationship with Asia and the Pacific.

Key points: The ABC celebrates 80 years of international broadcasting this year

The ABC celebrates 80 years of international broadcasting this year Radio Australia started out as a propaganda tool, but became a trusted news source

Radio Australia started out as a propaganda tool, but became a trusted news source However budget cuts have seen the ABC's overseas presence dip

For eight decades now, ABC broadcasts have reached lonely atolls in the Pacific as well as some of the planet's largest population centres in Asia.

But the ABC's international operations have come a long way from their origins in 1939.

Designed to compete as a propaganda service during World War II, radio programs were broadcast in the languages of both Australia's allies and its enemies: initially in French, Dutch, German and Spanish, and after 1942 in Japanese, Thai, Indonesian and Mandarin.

Launched as Australia Calling, it was later changed to Radio Australia. The Commonwealth Department of Information handed Radio Australia to the ABC to operate at arm's length, and it became a permanent fixture in 1950.

By the 1960s, Radio Australia was broadcasting in many of Asia's most widely spoken languages. ( ABC Archives )

Radio Australia's purpose in those first decades was to expand its foreign language services and reach as many continents as possible, relaying Australian news and views to expats and foreigners alike.

But more recent decades have seen dramatic cuts to the ABC's global presence, and while Australian stories are still being told overseas, questions remain over the future of international broadcasting.

"It's so important that Australia has a voice in this region, because there's so much misunderstanding between our cultures, and it is a different culture," Prodita Sabarini, executive editor of The Conversation Indonesia and an ABC content user, told the documentary Australia Calling.

"Without that voice, I don't think we would be able to really understand our neighbour."

Radio Australia's powerful impact on places like China

Radio Australia received hundreds of thousands of letters each year from China alone. ( ABC Archives )

In places like China, the "soft diplomacy" of the ABC's short-wave radio service gave listeners a very different view of the world than that allowed under chairman Mao Zedong.

China only had the Communist Party-authorised state media. Suddenly Radio Australia gave them a new perspective.

The popularity of Radio Australia was enormous, and the service received hundreds of thousands of letters each year from China alone.

But former China correspondent Helene Chung, who was also the ABC's first female foreign correspondent, said the differences between the two countries in those decades were clear to see.

Chung was at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and says many people in China still do not know about the massacre. ( ABC Archives )

"It was a very backward place. All the Chinese women were in blue suits, flat shoes, no make-up at all, and short-cropped hair," she said.

Being posted to Beijing from 1983 to 1986 was a profound experience for Chung, who grew up in Hobart.

"When I began working for the ABC, I didn't really think about my identity at all," she said.

"I always thought of myself as Australian-born Chinese, neither Chinese nor Australian, but going to China convinced me — I was not Chinese, I was definitely Australian."

Over time, she has watched China change rapidly, becoming one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

However one thing has not changed: Beijing's censorship of domestic as well as foreign media like the ABC, which was blocked in China last year.

Chung, in the Communist Party's compound in 1985, interviews general secretary Hu Yaobang. ( ABC Archives )

"The Chinese media is very repressed … As we speak, the Chinese people are not getting the truth about the demonstrations in Hong Kong and any other events," Chung said.

"Chinese in China still don't know about the Tiananmen Massacre. So it's very important that news services such as Australia's balanced ABC be heard by the Chinese.

Australia's voice goes silent as crises unfold across region

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 33 seconds 1 m 33 s ABC Chair Ita Buttrose says cuts to Radio Australia were "a bad decision".

In 1993, after more than 40 years of Radio Australia, the ABC expanded its international broadcast role to television — but it was shut down four years later when federal budget cuts gutted the corporation.

Radio Australia's operating budget was effectively halved, leading to the axing of its Cantonese, Thai and French services, and the closure of its short-wave transmitter to South-East and North-East Asia. The transmitter's signal was sold to Christian missionaries.

Radio Australia's French language service, staff of which are pictured in 1995, was closed after the 1997 cuts. ( ABC Archives )

This meant the ABC could no longer broadcast independently across China and Indonesia, and instead had to rely on local partner stations which agreed to rebroadcast Radio Australia's programs — hopefully without censorship.

"[The Howard government] wanted to close Radio Australia and Australian television altogether," former foreign minister Alexander Downer told the ABC.

The argument was that the ABC had too much money, and the government should not fund it to do foreign work.

"I successfully fought that. And including in cabinet meetings, explaining to the cabinet that this was an element of Australian soft power, they certainly didn't all agree with me," Mr Downer said.

Newspaper editorials were scathing: The Australian, in August 2000, declared that the "Howard Government's approach to Radio Australia has been short-sighted, incoherent and irresponsible".

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 3 minutes 10 seconds 3 m 10 s The cuts came just before tumultuous riots in Jakarta in 1998.

The reduction in services came as multiple crises were unfolding on Australia's doorstep.

Unrest across Indonesia in 1998 led to the fall of strongman leader Suharto, and little more than a year later, bloodshed in Timor-Leste saw an Australian-led peacekeeping force deployed to the region.

Until the cuts, hundreds of thousands of Indonesians had listened to Radio Australia.

"I think it was a bad decision," current ABC Chair Ita Buttrose said of the cuts.

"It's reduced the impact of what we do. Radio Australia doesn't have the same kind of voice it used to have."

The Howard government later backflipped on television broadcasts, supporting the ABC's return to an international service in 2001.

It lasted just over a decade until, suddenly and unexpectedly, the Abbott government pulled the plug one year into a 10-year funding deal.

'We depend on the ABC': Short wave cut in the Pacific

Vanuatu's Prime Minister Charlot Salwai says ABC short-wave broadcasts saved lives in his country. ( Australia Calling: Aaron Hollett ACS )

The ABC later cut its remaining short-wave radio broadcasts to the Pacific region in January 2017, arguing the technology was outdated.

Radio Australia's former short-wave frequencies were subsequently snapped up by China Radio International, China's state-owned broadcaster.

The decision to end short-wave radio caused deep concern for some Pacific leaders; short-wave transmissions are capable of reaching remote islands not serviced by FM radio, providing emergency information and warnings.

"Radio Australia short wave saves lives, especially during natural disasters," Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said.

Mr Salwai said Radio Australia's short-wave service was a vital lifeline when Cyclone Pam struck his country in 2015, and while they are attempting to build their own radio capacity, many ni-Vanuatu still rely on ABC broadcasts.

Cyclone Pam, one of the most powerful storms to hit the Pacific, killed at least 15 people in Vanuatu. ( Reuters: Dave Hunt )

"You save lives by informing people that a cyclone is coming," he said.

"When we don't have any coverage, we depend on the ABC."

'Time to review': Buttrose calls for ABC international 're-think'

Australia's voice in the region has now moved into a very crowded digital world.

Based in the ABC's Asia-Pacific Newsroom, Erwin Renaldi works on digital content in his native language, Bahasa Indonesia, hoping to bridge a deep cultural divide.

"[Indonesia and Australia] are very close geographically but we are so different," he said.

"What we are trying to do is more creating the conversation between young people, particularly young people, to address that misunderstanding."

The ABC is increasingly trying to reach international audiences through the internet; the ABC's iview streaming service is now available to overseas users via an app, and the ABC News website also offers articles in Chinese and Tok Pisin.

It is also still broadcasting television overseas through ABC Australia, however this is all done on a relatively tight budget.

By way of comparison, China has $3 billion for its China Central Television (CCTV) service, and the BBC has $500 million. The ABC's international operations budget is just $11 million, the same as it was in the 1980s.

"It's time to review this, we have a wonderful reputation in the Asia-Pacific region," Ms Buttrose said.

"We are trusted, people know we deliver reliable news and programs — it's the sort of trust you cannot get any other way.

ABC journalists, like Radio Australia's Caroline Tiriman (centre), have become trusted voices across the region over the decades. ( ABC Archives )

With the Australian Broadcasting Corporation celebrating 80 years of international broadcasts this year, she said it was a good time to re-examine what the ABC's role should be in this field.

"I'm an optimist — I hope that by talking about these issues … there will be a re-thinking of as a nation where we want to ABC International to go," she said.

"I think it should be forward. I think it should be playing that soft-power diplomacy role that it does so well."

Australia Calling will air tonight at 9:20pm on the ABC, and Friday night at 8:30pm on ABC Australia.

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