John Ruwitch
John Ruwitch is a correspondent with NPR's international desk. He covers Chinese affairs.
Ruwitch joined NPR in early 2020, and has since chronicled the tectonic shift in America's relations with China, from hopeful engagement to suspicion-fueled competition. He's also reported on a range of other issues, including Beijing's pressure campaign on Taiwan, Hong Kong's National Security Law, Asian-Americans considering guns for self-defense in the face of rising violence and a herd of elephants roaming in the Chinese countryside in search of a home.
Ruwitch joined NPR after more than 19 years with Reuters in Asia, the last eight of which were in Shanghai. There, he first covered a broad beat that took him as far afield as the China-North Korea border and the edge of the South China Sea. Later, he led a team that covered business and financial markets in the world's second biggest economy. Ruwitch has also had postings in Hanoi, Hong Kong and Beijing, reporting on anti-corruption campaigns, elite Communist politics, labor disputes, human rights, currency devaluations, earthquakes, snowstorms, Olympic badminton and everything in between.
Ruwitch studied history at U.C. Santa Cruz and got a master's in Regional Studies East Asia from Harvard. He speaks Mandarin and Vietnamese.
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Critics say the Chinese government is targeting Hong Kong's free press. The Hong Kong Journalists' Association is trying to protect freedom of the press, but it's unclear how much longer it can do so.
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Hong Kong has legislative elections on Sunday, but new rules favor candidates friendly towards the Beijing government. Activists say people can protest by not voting or by casting blank ballots.
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As the year comes to a close, here's where U.S. foreign policy toward Russia and China stands — and what we might expect in 2022.
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President Biden's Summit for Democracy has kicked off. China is not invited — but it's still trying to project its own narratives about democracy. -
The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representatives to Beijing for the winter Olympics given the "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity" in the Xinjiang region.
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Rather than clarify its political intentions, the U.S. has stayed vague about Taiwan for four decades to maintain peace. But there are signs of a shift toward more clarity these days.
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One of China's biggest tennis stars accused a former Vice Premier of sexual assault — then disappeared from public view. The Women's Tennis Association is calling on China to prove she's OK.
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Monday night, President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will hold a virtual summit. It will be their first formal meeting since Biden became president.
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In China, leadership has concluded a four-day meeting that endorsed Xi Jinping's vision for the country and signed off on a reassessment of the party's 100-year history.
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"If she does not make it past the coming winter, I hope the world will remember her as she once was," Zhang Zhan's brother said. She posted videos of Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic.
