The state-owned China Radio International (CRI) broadcasts an hour-long programme in Tamil every evening from its studios in western Beijing and has over the years built up an avid fan club of listeners among the Tamil speaking populations of Sri Lanka and South East Asia, but most specially Tamil Nadu itself.
The radio station was first established in 1941 with the aim of broadcasting Chinese news and views to the world, in the language of the intended audience. Today CRI broadcasts 290 hours worth of programmes every day in 43 languages, including four Indian languages: Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Urdu.
All four South Asian language departments are housed on the twelfth floor of the broadcaster’s headquarters, but what’s remarkable about the Tamil service in particular is the volume of letters sent in by its audience. Last year the Tamil department received a staggering 530,000 letters from listeners, some one-fourth of the total number of letters received by all 43 language services of CRI




