Katrina Northrop
@NorthropKatrina
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China correspondent for @washingtonpost | past: @thewirechina | reach me at: [email protected]
Taipei
Joined November 2018
For the past year, @PekingMike @eliotcxchen and I have examined leaked documents from the empire of Xiao Jianhua, the jailed banker to China's political elite. Our new @nytimes + @thewirechina investigation shows Xiao's secret backing of China's most revered businessman: Jack Ma.
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Today is my first day as a China correspondent for @washingtonpost! I will be in DC until the end of September, and then will be based in Taipei. Got ideas of China stories I should be covering/want to meet up in DC or Taipei? Email me at Katrina.Northrop@washpost.com.
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One month before Sam Altman was pushed out of OpenAI, he brokered a deal with G42, a UAE tech firm. On Monday, @nytimes reported that US intelligence is worried about G42's ties to China. But those ties run far deeper than previously reported. My piece:
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In 2012, Steve Wynn, the casino mogul, made a $50 million deal in Macau with two mysterious individuals —Ho Ho and Ho Hoi. For nearly 20 years, their identities have been a puzzle. Finally, after a months-long @thewirechina investigation, I have answers:.
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This story has it all: Eric Adams, elite Chinese politics, the model who won Miss China, a high profile Chinese bribery case, Manhattan's Plaza hotel and @KaiserKuo talking about Beijing nightclubs⤵️⤵️
On Monday, Qin Hui pled guilty to illegally funneling money to New York politicians. I dove into his colorful history in China, which included running a notorious Beijing nightclub, amassing a media empire, and being involved in a high profile bribery case.
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China is often described as a black box. For this week's @thewirechina cover story, I profiled the researchers who are using inventive new methods — from government procurement documents, to satellite imagery, to patent filing data — to shine a light in.
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After four amazing years at @thewirechina, I am very excited to move to Taipei as a China correspondent at @washingtonpost!!.
Katrina Northrop (@NorthropKatrina) is named The Post’s China correspondent, becoming a key member of a team covering a world power whose path is shaping the 21st century. Read the full announcement here👇.
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In 2017, KKR - the U.S. private equity giant - launched Cue Group in China. Three years later, after millions from U.S. pension funds poured into the company, Cue started promoting its ties to China's surveillance state. My investigation into KKR and Cue:
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I profiled John Garnaut, the former China journalist-cum-Australian government official who contributed to a global China policy shift. Now, he is teaming up with Matt Pottinger & reinventing himself as a China whisperer for the private sector:.
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For a great encapsulation of the story, look at this graphic, courtesy of Ella Apostoaie:
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I spoke with @RepGallagher, the chairman of the new Select Committee on China, about preventing Taiwan's future from becoming Ukraine's present, selective decoupling, and how his friendship with Matt Pottinger shaped his views on China:
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"I fear that people in the U.S. are saying things not because they are analytically true, but because they are politically what needs to be said in order to get confirmed, or have a seat at the table, or be invited to meetings" My Q&A w/ @jessicacweiss:.
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On Monday, Qin Hui pled guilty to illegally funneling money to New York politicians. I dove into his colorful history in China, which included running a notorious Beijing nightclub, amassing a media empire, and being involved in a high profile bribery case.
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Who are Ho Ho and Ho Hoi, the two brothers who struck a $50 million dollar deal in Macau with Wynn Resorts, the U.S. casino company? . We've spent months tracking them down, this is Part Two of my investigation @thewirechina: .
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I spoke with @suelinwong about making her @TheEconomist podcast The Prince, and what she learned — and didn't learn — about Xi Jinping in the process:
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We determined that the Ho Ho and Hoi were using aliases. In fact, they are brothers who grew up in Beijing, had multiple passports, deep ties to the Chinese military, offshore companies and indirect business connections to the relatives of China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
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ASML, the Dutch technology giant, is caught in the middle of the U.S.-China dispute over advanced chips. My piece on what the new export controls mean for a critical company in the supply chain:
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Evergrande's Xu Jiayin is known for convincing important people — like Wen Jiabao's brother & Jack Ma — to back him and catch him when he falls. But with his company falling apart and the government cracking down, no one is stepping in to save him:
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The DOJ alleged that Steve Wynn, who was previously finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, lobbied Trump to extradite Guo Wengui, the billionaire-turned-dissident. For more on the effort to extradite Guo, read @DavidBarboza2's story:
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Wow! Thanks to @sopasia for this amazing recognition and to the whole @thewirechina team!.
🏆 @northropkatrina from @thewirechina wins the SOPA Award for Young Journalists for a standout and impactful body of investigative work on China's economic influence with the story "The $50 Million Question." Congratulations! #SOPAwards2023. 📰
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I spoke with @peterhessler about his new book, what had and hadn’t changed from his initial teaching experience in China in the 1990s, why he thinks the lab leak theory is wrong, and why he was eventually forced to leave China: .
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A look at the gender breakdown of the U.S. CEOs who met with Xi Jinping in Beijing last week. @aaronMCN
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Here's a great graphic laying out the versions of the deal and the individuals involved:
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"It’s also important to recognize that there’s a significant number of people who have a different view of the future, and who are fighting actively in China today to create a different kind of China." . My interview w/ @iandenisjohnson on his book Sparks:
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It's a sensitive time for Mr. Wynn, who left his company in 2018 after sexual misconduct claims. The DOJ sued him in May to compel him to register as a foreign agent for China. The case was dismissed, but filings reveal his relationship w/ top Chinese security official Sun Lijun.
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Many thanks to @DavidBarboza2 & @ckamarckfox for excellent editing and support, and again, here is the link to Part 1 of our series: . The $50 Million Dollar Question: .
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Do you want to learn more about Ho Ho and Ho Hoi, the two well-connected Beijingers with indirect business ties to the family of Xi Jinping? Tune back in next Sunday for the second installment of this series, which will publish their original names and fascinating life stories.
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Macau wasn't just any market for Wynn Resorts — by 2018, the Chinese gambling enclave would make up a shocking 75 percent of Wynn's revenue as Chinese high rollers flooded into the casinos. So they were eager to build this casino, and build it fast.
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From the very beginning, the deal was confusing. First, evidence emerged that Ho Ho didn't seem to have documented rights to the land in question. Second, the companies and terms of the deal evolved to eventually include a different company, controlled by Ho Hoi (not Ho Ho).
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If you’re looking for some weekend reading, and missed it from earlier this week, read my profile of John Garnaut. Far from a household name, Garnaut contributed to a global shift on China policy and is now a China whisperer for hedge funds:.
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Cool to see @thewirechina reporting about the two men at the center of China's PLA linked balloon program cited in both @nytimes and @WSJ today!. In case you missed it, read the story about the balloon scientist and his financier:
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I profiled @yangyang_cheng, a physicist turned public intellectual who has emerged at the center of one of today’s most pressing geopolitical issues: the U.S.-China scientific relationship.
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A lot of people talk about the Great Firewall, but very few people actually understand it. I spoke with @NP_tokumei about his research on how the censorship system not only impacts China, but also structurally damages the globe's internet. @thewirechina
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It is also a sensitive time for Wynn Resorts. Two weeks ago, after a long bidding process, the company won a provisional license to continue operating on the island for the next 10 years, beginning in January. The final negotiations will occur over the next month.
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Wynn Resorts describes it as a simple real estate deal: It needed land to build the Wynn Palace, the "single most important project" in the company's history, & the government told the company there was a plot already earmarked for a man named Ho Ho. Wynn bought him out for $50M.
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This story also illuminates Macau's impenetrable universe of high stakes dealmaking. As @orvilleschell put it, Macau "was the spark plug where foreign money & Chinese political power could intersect without tremendous scrutiny.".
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The $4 billion Wynn Palace opened in 2016, and by then, Wynn faced significant regulatory scrutiny regarding its dealings in Macau (with no findings of wrongdoing). Most of that scrutiny related to Wynn's $135M donation to the University of Macau Development Foundation.
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I spoke with @ZichenWanghere about his popular newsletter Pekingnology, wolf warrior diplomacy, and why he thinks Mike Gallagher should visit China: .
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So excited to be a finalist for the @sopasia young journalist award!!. Thanks you to @ckamarckfox @DavidBarboza2 @andypeaps for incredible editing and support 😀.
Finalists revealed for #SOPAwards2023: 🏆. @sopasia is thrilled to share that we have received more than 800 entries in English & Chinese, while there were almost 20 in the Bahasa category. A hearty round of applause & congratulations to all our finalists!
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We did not find evidence that the $50M went to a Chinese political figure or a politician’s family member. But reconstructing this deal highlights just how important Macau is for U.S. casino firms. As Steve Wynn himself put it in 2014, “We are primarily a Chinese company.”.
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Cool to see my @thewirechina story on the Chinese billionaire with a checkered history illegally funneling money to NY politicians co-published in @THECITYNY. No paywall! .
Qin Hui, the billionaire who pleaded guilty to illegally funneling donations to Mayor Eric Adams and other officials, operated a notorious nightclub, was involved in a bribery case and punished by the Chinese securities regulator. Via @TheWireChina:.
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In my interviews for this piece, the XPCC was likened to various elusive natural phenomena: an octopus, an iceberg, bamboo. But most people agreed on one thing: without understanding the XPCC, it's impossible to understand modern day Xinjiang.
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But back to the original question, who are Ho Ho and Ho Hoi? We've spent months trying to answer this question by pouring over corporate records, land registries, @ICIJorg's Panama Papers, and court filings from Hong Kong, China and Macau. And what we found is pretty interesting.
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FSG was founded by Erik Prince, the notorious American mercenary, and backed by CITIC. Today, it is one of the premier Chinese private security companies - protecting Chinese companies operating in dangerous places. My story about the industry's boom:
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Another interesting element is the involvement of Macau's chief executive/highest ranking official: Edmund Ho. He was the one to tell Wynn Resorts that it would need to partner with Ho Ho if it wanted to use the land and reportedly even gave the company Ho Ho's number.
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There was also scrutiny into the land deal. In 2014, Macau's Commission Against Corruption announced it was investigating the deal, but interestingly, never released any findings or announced it was completed. Wynn Resorts says that it was not the subject of the investigation.
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The company told us that it conducted extensive due diligence into the companies and individuals involved, but declined to provide details about the results, citing Macau privacy laws. Regarding Ho Ho's lack of documented land rights, Wynn said this was not unusual in Macau.
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This deal has attracted a fair amount of attention over the years and there has been some terrific reporting on it. @Kate_OKeeffe and @Macau_Business both wrote great stories about the deal in 2012, and the IUOE, the US union, published extensive research on it.
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Intriguingly, a ten percent shareholder in Ho Ho's company was Cliff Cheong, a close family friend and former business partner of Edmund Ho, according to a deposition in an unrelated court case. @thewirechina spoke to Cheong, and he said he had no involvement in the Wynn deal.
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"When we do research on Chinese politics, we should always keep a few things in mind. The first is that we have had a very bad track record understanding Chinese politics on the outside as events were transpiring" @JosephTorigian interviewed by @bcamcrane .
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Very exciting to see John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua at this week's U.S.-China climate summit holding the illustration of them from our @thewirechina piece about their personal relationship, and about the potential for climate cooperation (h/t @LiShuo_GP).
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A great graphic on Qin's web of associations, courtesy of Ella Apostoaie:
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I spoke with @BonnieGlaser and @ryanl_hass about their new book and getting Taiwan policy right:
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I wrote about balloons! The US government sanctioned 6 Chinese companies involved in the balloon program on Friday. Four of them are linked to two men: a military aerospace scientist and a tech investor. My story on the powerful duo (not paywalled!): .
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“While their actions can sometimes seem aggressive — even bizarre — from the outside, they make perfect sense when seen from a domestic perspective,” an excellent except of @PeterMartin_PCM’s book about Chinese diplomacy in @thewirechina
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China's most celebrated and most notorious billionaires were linked through a complex web of investments worth at least $1 billion. Read our @thewirechina + @nytimes joint investigation about Jack Ma's secret investor. Me with @PekingMike @eliotcxchen:
The celebrated entrepreneur Jack Ma publicly derided the cronyism that pervades Chinese companies. But Xiao Jianhua, a corrupt investor tied to the country’s political elite, secretly invested in his businesses, The New York Times and The Wire China found.
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Who is behind the Chinese balloons? Check out our story with lots of new details about two men at the center of the military linked program:
I wrote about balloons! The US government sanctioned 6 Chinese companies involved in the balloon program on Friday. Four of them are linked to two men: a military aerospace scientist and a tech investor. My story on the powerful duo (not paywalled!): .
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I spoke with @SheenaGreitens about China's definition of national security, why the November protests in China should concern the Communist Party, and why it is hard to explain China's security policies in Xinjiang:.
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Reporting in China is always hard. But this year, with a wave of expulsions, detentions, and harassment, the foreign press corps was essentially wiped out. Here's my story about how we got to this point, and why it matters for the world .
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What should we expect from China at COP26? I asked @kellysgallagher @laurimyllyvirta @JoannaILewis @LiShuo_GP @han_cecilia. Read about China's existing climate commitments, what's at stake, and how China's current power crunch will impact their targets:
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"Walz recalled taking at least six trips to Macau, then a Portuguese colony, where he could eat McDonald’s and watch English language movies." . Read @eliotcxchen's piece for many more details on Tim Walz's extensive China background:
To make sense of @Tim_Walz’s China chops and how he might influence a potential @KamalaHarris administration, @eliotcxchen reviewed Walz’s past interviews, speeches and voting record, and spoke to those familiar with his #China experience.
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John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the climate envoys for the U.S. and China, are tasked with ensuring the two countries cooperate on climate. In this @thewirechina story, I look at what that will actually look like w/ @ebinder21 :
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"People don’t realize what’s online,” @adrianzenz said to me.“The flexibility of a single mind can penetrate China’s publicly available systems and elephantine bureaucracy.”.
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Check out @hannahereale's useful, and incredibly detailed, breakdown of Biden's China team from here:
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The US government is trying to stop China from selling chips to Russia that aid its war effort. It’s failing. A new @thewirechina investigation shows the whack-a-mole nature of America's expansive sanctions regime:.
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Last week, @thewirechina published an investigation into a network of Shenzhen-based companies exporting chips to Russia. Today, the Commerce Department placed two of those companies on the Entity List. If you missed my story, read it below⤵️
The US government is trying to stop China from selling chips to Russia that aid its war effort. It’s failing. A new @thewirechina investigation shows the whack-a-mole nature of America's expansive sanctions regime:.
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“I don’t see any sign right now of any organized elite resistance to Xi. But while I can’t tell you what will happen, when it happens I won’t be surprised,” says @SusanShirk1 in my interview for @thewirechina
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Eric Dai claims he exposed a Chinese scheme to acquire military technology. His Chinese business partner claims he stole $70 million. This tale has it all: Operation Fox Hunt, chip wars, Guo Wengui, secret tapes, and an empty World Trade Center office:.
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China’s first homegrown mRNA Covid vaccine, which was developed by two pharma companies and a military academy, was just approved for booster trials. Will having a mRNA vaccine change China’s covid zero approach?
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From an insider trading probe to a failed takeover from Blackstone, it’s been a rough year for Soho. I wrote about how many see Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin — the husband-and-wife founders — as two more victims of Beijing’s crackdown on business moguls.
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“'NYU Shanghai, as far as I can tell, is the closest to an American university experience Chinese students will get in China,' says @ehundman. The question. is if being 'close' to an American university standard is good enough"@carrierana22
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Wang Qishan, China's charismatic vice president, has many nicknames: 'fire brigade chief,' 'barbarian handler,' the 'Wayne Gretzky of Chinese bureaucracy.' . @eliotcxchen and I delved into his fascinating history and uncertain future for our profile:
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After a 6-month investigation, @mckennapr @lili_pike and I found that 11 chemical factories in China likely emit greenhouse gases equal to the exhaust of 25 million cars. Read our piece about the climate catastrophe in @insideclimate here:
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And check out this cool graphic by @eliotcxchen showing just how many Chinese students come to the U.S. every year:
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On Thursday, Gina Raimondo met with her Chinese counterpart — the 1st cabinet level meeting between the US & China in DC during the Biden administration. Read my piece about the Commerce Department's surprisingly central role in China policy:
Today, I met with the Minister of Commerce for the People's Republic of China Wang Wentao. We discussed the 🇺🇸-🇨🇳 commercial relationship, opportunities for trade and investment, and the recent PRC actions taken against US companies operating in the PRC.
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What’s going on with Trump’s newest business venture and it’s connections to China? My latest for @thewirechina, graphic by @eliotcxchen
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For my last piece in @thewirechina, I wrote about gunpowder. The Russia-Ukraine war has shone a light on China’s integral role in the supply chain for nitrocellulose, a key component of modern gunpowder, and spurred concerns in Washington and Brussels.
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From the hold of a fishing boat in Alaska to a processing facility in Dalian, China, to a refrigerated container in Virginia and finally to Target's seafood aisle. Read @eliotcxchen on the counterintuitive global food supply chain:
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After 2008, AVIC, the Chinese military contractor, went on a buying spree all across the US, in places like Duluth, MN and Saginaw, MI. Was the US government asleep at the switch? Or did it make sense? Read our story about the messy reality @ebinder21
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I have long admired @JiayangFan’s reporting on China for @NewYorker. This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing her about journalism, the tentacular nature of the CCP, and the symbol of Hong Kong:
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Especially in light of recent boycotts against Western brands in China, this Q&A with @ameliapangg is a useful discussion of what U.S. consumers can be doing to promote better labor practices in China
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TikTok’s owner, Bytedance, has been plagued by criticisms about censorship and data security. But now, in a bid to establish itself as a global company, it’s trying to shed its Chinese origins. My latest for @thewirechina:
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For this week's @thewirechina, I wrote about why Chinese women are dropping out the workforce, and why China should care.
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To go behind the scenes on how we did this year long project, watch this video:
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Tariffs have become a staple of the US’s China policy, but a failure to enforce them properly is creating problems for American companies. I wrote about one auto parts executive and his journey to prove that his Chinese competitor was evading tariffs:.
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Go @joshfwaldman!!.
Introducing the 2024 cohort of Knight-Hennessy scholars!. The 90 students are from 30 countries and are pursuing degrees in 45 graduate programs across all seven of @Stanford’s graduate schools. (1/3)
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The U.S government is poised to increase its scrutiny of the billions of American investment dollars flowing into Chinese high tech firms. But putting the policy into practice may be harder than many in Washington expect. My piece in @thewirechina:.
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"His personal office at times sent suggestions to China’s leadership through an office in the Communist Party’s Central Committee that reported to Mr. Xi. It was 'like writing love letters to a loved one, but not getting many responses'"
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Hard to beat a @PekingMike monster thread. For more on our investigation ⤵️⤵️.
THREAD: Digging through the documents showing how Xiao Jianhua, a jailed billionaire and former concierge to China's Communist Party princelings, was secretly invested in Alibaba, Ant Financial and other companies linked to Jack Ma, China's most famous businessman. (1/x).
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Three months into bilateral cooperation between the US and China on fentanyl, it is clear that making a meaningful dent in the illicit drug supply in the US will require deep collaboration and compromise at a time when the two countries are wary of both.
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Looking to understand the current state of the U.S.-China relationship and how we got here? This @bobdavis187 story, drawing on his wide ranging series of interviews with top U.S. officials for @thewirechina, is an illuminating read:.
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China is exporting millions of Covid-19 vaccines to countries all across the world in desperate need. But they are also refusing to release much data about their efficacy. What will this mean for the world, and could it come back to haunt Beijing?.
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Interesting new @SinicaPodcast about Esquel from @KaiserKuo and @WilliamHOverhol, thanks for shouting out and engaging with my piece about the company:
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China is bankrolling the world's coal industry, even as the rest of the world cuts back and Xi pledges to go carbon neutral. Read my story, with thoughts from @KevinPGallagher @hanchennrdc @zhangkai0906 @OKatisoz @Lucie_Pinson_ @TimBuckleyIEEFA :
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If you didn't read last week's story, go read it! It shows how the Ho brothers were virtually unknown in Macau, did not have documented rights to the land, and the original partner in the deal was a friend and former biz partner of Macau's chief executive:
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Our investigation shows that the men were using aliases, and they were from an elite military family in Beijing. They have a maze of corporate holdings, both onshore and offshore, and indirect business connections to the family of Xi Jinping.
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This fits into a broader trend: after the invasion, shipments of chips to Russia by Western electronics exporting nations sharply dropped off. But shipments from China and Hong Kong have helped Russia fill the gap. A useful graph using @SilveradoPolicy analysis:
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By wearing a Patagonia fleece, eating Heinz Ketchup, or texting on an iPhone, you may be using goods produced by forced labor from the Uighur population in China. Read my piece about how companies are dealing with the supply chain tangle in @thewirechina
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China is a leader in the global solar industry. But its state policy banks seem reluctant to finance overseas solar projects. Why? Read my latest for @thewirechina
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I had lots of fun talking with @JohnDelury about his latest book, Agents of Subversion, and the CIA's complicated history in China for this @thewirechina interview: .
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