British ministers have been warned in Parliament of the "emasculation and irreparable degradation of British influence overseas" with cuts to the BBC World Service.
The criticism at Westminster follows the announcement that some 382 jobs would be cut at the station and a number of foreign language radio services closed in the face of cost-cutting and a shift to digital by the broadcaster.
With concerns over harm to the UK's so-called "soft power", there were calls in the Lords for the Government to restore the main funding of the world service via the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) through taxation, rather than the now frozen licence fee.
Leading a debate in the upper chamber, human rights campaigner Lord Alton of Liverpool said drastic cuts to the BBC's overseas arm had left "many dismayed and angry" as the corporation marked its centenary.
The independent crossbencher said: "Traditionally the funding came from the Government and therefore from taxation based on the ability to pay.
"By comparison, the licence fee is regressive and not determined by income.
"Why should we expect a listener in Liverpool to pay via their licence fee for services … in a language they don't understand, which the BBC broadcast to the listener in Lahore?
"Or a viewer in Bradford for BBC services in Beijing, or a pensioner in Yeovil for services in Yangdong?
"This shouldn't come from the licence fee but be seen as a legitimate public expenditure via taxation."
He added: "How much clearer and better it would be if the world service was funded once again from the FCDO as part of a ring-fenced allocation with a restored ODA (official development assistance) budget.
"BBC World has given people hope in times of oppression, despair and crisis. Despite many competitors it is … our best-known cultural export. The most trusted news brand. It is crucial to diplomacy, critical to culture, crucial to commerce.
"I hope the message from today's debate during the 100-year celebrations will be to insist that the BBC's global reach is enhanced and not savagely cut. That it remains first among equals.
"That we will not accept the emasculation and irreparable degradation of British influence overseas and look again at a funding model that is wholly unsuited to ensuring that, in the battle of ideas between dictatorship and democracy, our voice in the UK is not silenced."
Bosnian-born Baroness Helic, a former adviser to William Hague when he was foreign secretary, said: "The integrity of the world service reflects on Britain, benefiting our trade, cultural reach and reputation.
"It is also an exemplar of soft power in undermining those who would rather the truth doesn't come out."
She added: "Even as we aspire in our rhetoric to be outward looking, our actions tell a different story.
"We hope to be a global nation and we cannot be global without a global voice."
Lord Hannay of Chiswick, former UK ambassador to the EU and the UN, said the switch to fund the world service from the licence fee was "a clever trick by a clever Chancellor of the Exchequer, but a fundamental mistake all the same".
The independent crossbencher added: "Surely it would be better to go back to the old system of bearing the cost of those overseas services on the FCDO budget paid for out of general taxation, like other parts of our overseas expenditure."
He said: "The present financial arrangements are neither sustainable nor are they, I would suggest, beneficial to the national interest."
