Gillian Wong has been reporting from China since 2008 and is now the news director for Greater China at the Associated Press. High-profile stories Gillian has covered include the 2012 Tibetan self-immolations and the downfall of Bo Xilaiย ่็ๆฅ.
Her husband, Josh Chin, works as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal,ย where he has covered China since 2007. Prior to the Journal, Josh was a research fellow at the Asia Societyโs Center on U.S.-China Relations, where he helped produce the China Boom Project.
Between the two of them, Gillian and Josh have covered a host of China-related topics, ranging from cybersecurity to Xinjiang. They talk to Kaiser and Jeremy about their paths to becoming journalists, their experience of the changing working conditions for journalists in China, and their efforts to create diverse and representative narratives โ complicated, and sometimes aided, by the fact that they are both at least part ethnically Chinese.
Recommendations:
Jeremy:ย Memphis, Tennessee, an American cultural destination and the musical hometown of B.B. King and Elvis Presley.
Kaiser:ย Matt Sheehanโs piece on Californiaโs transformation into an epicenter for U.S.-China relations, โWelcome to Chinafornia: The Future of U.S.-China Relations.โย As a second recommendation, The Polish Officer,ย by Alan Furst, which does an incredible job of re-creating an old-world style of language and immersing the reader in its respective time and space.
Gillian:ย The audiobook reading by Tom Perkins of John Pomfretโs The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom.
(Listenย to John Pomfret discuss his bookย on Sinica.)
Josh:ย The Paulson Instituteโs MacroPoloย initiative, which uses the latest research to decode Chinaโs economy, urbanization, and development. A lot of great data all in one accessible, punny place.
Also check out Gillian and Joshโs coauthored front-page piece, โChinaโs new tool for social control: A credit rating for everything.โ
