James McGregor

on February 7, 2014

James McGregor is an American author, journalist, and businessman who has lived in China for more than 25 years. He is Chairman of APCO Worldwide, Greater China, and a professional speaker and commentator who specializes in China business, politics, and society.

McGregor is the author of the books No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers: The Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism (Prospecta Press, 2012) and One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China (Simon and Schuster, 2005). He also wrote the 2010 report “China’s Drive for ‘Indigenous Innovation’—A Web of Industrial Policies.”

From 1987 to 1990, McGregor served as The Wall Street Journal’s Bureau Chief in Taiwan, and from 1990 to 1994 as the paper’s Bureau Chief in Mainland China. From 1994 to 2000, he was Chief Executive of Dow Jones & Company in China. After leaving Dow Jones, he was China Managing Partner for GIV Venture Partners, a $140 million venture capital fund specializing in the Chinese Internet and technology outsourcing.

In 1996, McGregor was elected as Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. He also served for a decade as a governor of that organization. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and the International Council of Asia Society. He serves on a variety of China-related advisory boards. He splits his time between Shanghai and Beijing.

James Fallows

on February 7, 2014

James Fallows is based in Washington, D.C. as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine since the late 1970s, and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard University, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of U.S. News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the Chair in U.S. Media for the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. Two of his most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (Vintage, 2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (Vintage, 2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His book is China Airborne (Pantheon, 2012). He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the book Dreaming in Chinese (Walker & Company, 2011).

Jaime Wolf

on February 7, 2014

Jaime Wolf has been writing on a wide range of topics since the mid-1990s, for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Colors, Playboy, New York Magazine, GOOD Magazine, The New York Observer, and other publications. He has a longstanding engagement with China and Chinese culture, and played a role in introducing Jackie Chan, Wong Kar-Wai, and Jia Zhangke to U.S. readers. In recent years, he has also served in an editorial capacity on the launch of GOOD Magazine and The Wall Street Journal’s weekend magazine, WSJ., and is currently part of the team behind an Internet startup slated to launch later this year. Additionally a Photographer, Screenwriter, and Director, Wolf has directed music videos and written screenplays for Hollywood studios and independent producers, and he is producing and preparing to direct The French Concession, a feature film about foreign expatriates in contemporary Shanghai.

J. Michael Evans

on February 7, 2014

Michael Evans is a vice chairman of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and global head of Growth Markets for the firm. He is a member of the Management Committee and the Client and Business Standards Committee.

Evans joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 and over the next decade held various leadership positions within the firm’s equities business while based in New York and London, including global head of Equity Capital Markets and head of the Equities Division. In 2003, he became one of four global co-heads of the FICC and Equities Divisions. In 2004, he moved to Hong Kong as chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific. Evans was named the firm’s first global head of Growth Markets in 2011. He became a partner in 1994.

Evans is chairman of the board of Right To Play USA and a board member of City Harvest. He is also a trustee of the Asia Society and a member of the Advisory Council for the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University.

He earned an undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1981 and attended Oxford University from 1982 to 1984 for his graduate studies.

Isabel Hilton

on February 7, 2014

Isabel Hilton is a London-based international journalist and broadcaster. She studied at the Beijing Foreign Language and Culture University and at Fudan University in Shanghai before taking up a career in written and broadcast journalism, working for The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, and the New Yorker. In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC’s flagship news program, “The World Tonight,” then BBC Radio Three’s cultural program “Night Waves.” She is a columnist for The Guardian and her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Granta, the New Statesman, El Pais, Index on Censorship, and many other publications. She is the author and co-auothor of several books and is founder and editor of chinadialogue.net, a non-profit, fully bilingual online publication based in London, Beijing, and Delhi that focuses on the environment and climate change. Hilton holds two honorary doctorates and was awarded the OBE for her work in raising environmental awareness in China.

Ira Belkin

on February 7, 2014

Ira Belkin is Executive Director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University. Before joining NYU, he was a program officer at the Ford Foundation in Beijing, where he worked on law and rights issues. His grant-making supports Chinese institutions working to build the Chinese legal system, to strengthen the rule of law, and to enhance the protection of citizens' rights, especially the rights of vulnerable groups. Prior to joining the foundation in 2007, Belkin combined a career as an American lawyer and federal prosecutor with a deep interest in China, and spent seven years working to promote the rule of law in China. His appointments included two tours at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and a year as a fellow at the Yale Law School China Law Center. After graduating from NYU Law, Belkin spent sixteen years as a Federal Prosecutor, including time in Providence, R.I. where he was Chief of the criminal division, and in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was Deputy Chief of the general crimes unit.

Before attending law school, Belkin taught Chinese language at Middlebury College. He has lectured extensively in Chinese to Chinese audiences on the U.S. criminal justice system and to American audiences on the Chinese legal reform movement. In addition to his J.D. from New York University School of Law, Belkin has a Master's Degree in Chinese studies from Seton Hall University and a Bachelor's Degree from SUNY Albany.

Ilaria Maria Sala

on February 7, 2014

Ilaria Maria Sala was born in Italy and grew up in Bologna and Florence. She has studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing University. After a few years in Japan she is now based in Hong Kong, where she writes about China and Asia. Sala is the author of Il Dio dell’Asia: Religione e Politica in Oriente: Un Reportage (Italian; Il Saggiatore, 2006) (winner of the Bruce Chatwin Award for Travel Literature), a book of travel features about religion; and a volume of essays, Lettere dalla Cina (Italian; Una Città, 2011). She writes for the Italian daily La Stampa (for which she won the Igor Man award for journalism in 2011) and contributes to The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She is passionate about a lot of topics, but particularly enthusiastic about ceramics, tea, and the Qianlong Emperor.

Ilaria Maria Sala was born in Italy and grew up in Bologna and Florence. She has studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing University. After some years in Japan, she now calls Hong Kong home. Sala is the author of Il Dio dell’Asia: Religione e Politica in Oriente (Italian; Il Saggiatore, 2006) (winner of the Bruce Chatwin Award for Travel Literature); and a volume of essays, Lettere dalla Cina (Italian; Una Città, 2011). Her ChinaFile piece “Beijing Autumn” obtained a Human Rights Press Award in 2016. She is a contributing writer for Quartz, and various other publications.  She is passionate about a lot of topics, but particularly enthusiastic about ceramics, tea, and the Qianlong Emperor.

Ian Teh

on February 7, 2014

Ian Teh’s concern for social, environmental, and political issues is evident in much of his photography. Amongst selected works, his series, The Vanishing: Altered Landscapes and Displaced Lives (1999-2003), records the devastating impact of the Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River. In later works, such as "Dark Clouds" (2006-2008), "Tainted Landscapes" (2007-2008), and "Traces" (2009-), Teh explores the darker consequences of China’s booming economy.

Teh has received numerous honors. Recently, he was selected by the Open Society Foundations to exhibit his work in New York for the 2013 "Moving Walls." In 2011, he won the Emergency Fund from the Magnum Foundation. His work was also highly commended for the Prix Pictet prize in 2009 and he was awarded a place on the Joop Swart Masterclass in 2001. Teh has exhibited widely and has been featured in contemporary art publications such as Elena Ochoa Foster’s C-International Photo Magazine, as well as international current affairs magazines such as Time and The New Yorker. Selected solo shows include the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York in 2004, Flowers in London in 2011, and the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam in 2012. In 2010, the literary magazine Granta published a ten-year retrospective of his work in China.

He has published two monographs, Undercurrents (2008) and Traces (2011). His work is also part of the permanent collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH); and the Hood Museum in the U.S.

Ian Johnson

on February 7, 2014

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, researcher, and Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the founder of the China Unofficial Archives, a new website that collects hundreds of samizdat journals, books, and underground documentary films. His most recent book, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future, was released in September 2023.

Johnson first went to China as a student in Beijing from 1984 to 1985, and then studied in Taipei from 1986 to 1988. He later worked as a newspaper correspondent in China, from 1994 to 1996 with The Baltimore Sun, and from 1997 to 2001 with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered macroeconomics, China’s WTO accession, and social issues.

In 2009, Johnson returned to China, living there until 2020. He wrote regularly for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. He taught undergraduates at The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies, and served as an advisor to The Journal of Asian Studies. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Leipzig on Chinese religious associations.

Johnson won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of China, two awards from the Overseas Press Club, an award from Society of Professional Journalists, and Stanford University’s Shorenstein Journalism Award for his body of work covering Asia. In 2019, he won the American Academy of Religion’s “best in-depth newswriting” award.

In 2006-2007, he spent a year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and later received research and writing grants from Open Society Foundations, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and The Alicia Patterson Foundation. In 2020, he was an inaugural grantee of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation for work in progress. He was also awarded a 2020-2021 National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars fellowship for a new book he is writing on China’s unofficial history.

Johnson has published three books and contributed chapters to four others. His newest book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, describes China’s religious revival and its implications for politics and society. His other books are on civil society and grassroots protest in China (Wild Grass, 2004) and Islamism and the Cold War in Europe (A Mosque in Munich, 2010).

He has also contributed chapters to: My First Trip to China(2011), Chinese Characters (2012), The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China (2016), and The Forbidden City: The Palace at the Heart of Chinese Culture (2021).

Ian Buruma

on February 7, 2014

Ian Buruma was educated in Holland and Japan, where he studied history, Chinese literature, and Japanese cinema. In the 1970s in Tokyo, he acted in Kara Juro’s Jokyo Gekijo and participated in Maro Akaji’s butoh dancing company, Dairakudakan, followed by a career in documentary filmmaking and photography. In the 1980s, he worked as a journalist and spent much of his early writing career travelling and reporting from all over Asia.

Buruma now writes about a broad range of political and cultural subjects for major publications, most frequently for The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, and NRC Handelsblad. He was Cultural Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong (1983-86) and Foreign Editor of The Spectator, London (1990-91), and he has been a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin; the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C.; St. Antony’s College, Oxford; and Remarque Institute, NYU.

He has delivered lectures at various academic and cultural institutions world-wide, including Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard universities. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Ian Buruma was awarded the 2008 international Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to culture, society or social science in Europe." He was voted as one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals by the Foreign Policy/Prospect magazines in 2008 and 2010. Buruma was awarded the 2008 Shorenstein Journalism Award, an annual award which "honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way that work has helped American readers to understand the complexities of Asia." His book, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (Penguin USA) was the winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book. In April 2012 he was awarded the Abraham Kuyper Prize at the Princeton Theological Seminary.

Some of his recent books include Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (Princeton University Press, 2010), based on the Stafford Little lectures given at Princeton in 2008, and Grenzen aan de vrijheid: van De Sade tot Wilders (Lemniscaat, 2010), written in Dutch as the 2010 essay for the Maand van de Filosofie and later published as (Arcadia, Barcelona, 2011).

Buruma writes monthly columns for Project Syndicate. From September 2011 to May 2012, he was a fellow of the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library.