Lu Yao

Lu Yao is a student in the Division of Social Science in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where she is studying to obtain a Master of Philosophy. Her research focuses on ethnic relations in Zambia and on China-Africa links. Her current work takes a comparative approach to understand indigenous perceptions of non-indigenous people in Zambia.

Vivian Wu

Vivian Wu is the International Cooperation Director for Initium Media, a Hong Kong-based news, features, and data journalism website and app. Prior to moving to New York City in August 2016 for a Political Science graduate program at the New School, Wu was the Chief Content Director for China News at Initium Media in Beijing.

Wu has over 15 years of experience working in newspapers, magazines, TV, and digital media. Among many other posts, she was Editorial Director at the celebrity magazine Portrait in China; media and legal reporter at the South China Morning Post Beijing Bureau for six years; and content supervisor at CCTV-6 for four years. She has won a great number of journalism awards in Hong Kong and Asia.

Wu also has rich experience in managing international NGO and social enterprise programs in China, the U.S., Europe, Japan, and East Africa through cooperations with media, IT businesses, law firms, and academic institutes. She is the co-founder of Yi De Vision, an independent global media think tank, and senior media advisor to international organizations including Internews China, UNESCO and the U.S. Embassy European Delegation, as well as many other embassies in Beijing.

Wu is the co-editor of the book Openness or Restriction, Freedom of Expression Versus Application of the Law in New Media Context (Peking University Press, 2013). With a B.A. in English Literature from Renmin University and M.A degree in International Communication from Peking University, she was a fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford in 2010, and a visiting scholar to the University of California, Berkeley in 2011 and to Waseda University in Tokyo in 2013.

Obama’s Asia Legacy

A China in the World Podcast

As President Obama enters his final months in office and a new administration prepares to take the helm in 2017, what will his legacy be in the Asia-Pacific? In this podcast, Paul Haenle and Michael Green, former senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W.

Mark Simon

Mark Simon is Managing Director of Lai’s Trust, majority owner of Next Digital, publishers of Apple Daily and Next Magazine. Simon also serves as a Director with Next Animation, and has a column with Next Magazine. He has held multiple positions in Next Digital, including General Manager of Apple Daily. Simon has lived in Hong Kong on and off for the past 25 years.

A Chinese Train Could Link South America’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts by Rail for the First Time

Will Environmental and Social Concerns Scuttle the Project?

Official bodies from Brazil and Peru have expressed concern about the social and environmental impacts of the proposed interoceanic railway, which will connect the coast of Peru and Brazil, cutting through 621 miles of pristine rainforest.

China’s Teflon Toxin Problem

Since the late 1970s, the chemical industry has been at the heart of China’s dazzling growth. And as regulations increase around the world, many toxic chemicals wind up coming to China just to die a slow death. Teflon—the slippery substance used in dental floss, textile fibers, wire and cable insulation, and hundreds of other products, including nonstick cookware—is one of them.

The Chinese Democratic Experiment that Never Was

Hong Kong Protesters Get Most of the Press, but the Latest Conflict in Wukan Means More to Mainlanders

Protesters in southern China are up in arms. They feel that Beijing’s promises that they’d be able to vote for their own local leaders have been honored in the breach. They’re outraged at the show of force in the face of peaceful protest, and confronted with superior government might, they are using the power of numbers and the reach of social media to make their voices heard.Readers would be forgiven for thinking the above to be a description of Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protests in October 2014 and a subsequent independence movement have captured global attention.

Michael Green

Michael Green is a Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He previously served as the Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

Can China’s Best Newspaper Survive?

A ChinaFile Conversation

On September 9, the South China Morning Post’s Chinese-language website went dark with little explanation, leading to concerns that censorship might next spread to the newspaper’s English-language coverage. Can Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, who has strong ties to mainland business interests and to the ruling party, support “objective, balanced and fair” coverage of China and his own business in English only? Are Chinese readers and readers of news in Chinese to be deemed second-class citizens, even by the venerable SCMP?