Tania Branigan is China Correspondent for The Guardian and has been based in Beijing since 2008, covering every major story from the Wenchuan earthquake to the downfall of Bo Xilai, the Olympics, and riots in Xinjiang. Along the way, she has interviewed novelists, yak herders, North Korean workers, dissidents, and a missile researcher turned matchmaker. She has worked for The Guardian since 2000, previously covering U.K. news and politics.
Zhang was 22 when he came to national attention in 1973, after he wrote to leaders excoriating the examination as a return to the capitalist model of education. Now 63, he is a major shareholder in the publicly-traded Wellhope Agri-Tech.