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.
-
China has installed a new defense minister hailing from the navy, months after his predecessor was removed with no explanation.
-
Mao Zedong built China's Communist revolution on the back of the country's impoverished peasants, and now Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants a new economic revolution to take root in the countryside.
-
The state news agency Xinhua said the quake had a magnitude of 6.2. It reportedly damaged water, electricity, transport, communications and other infrastructure in the mountainous region. -
Hong Kong's highest-profile national security trial got under way amid tight security on Monday. It's against Jimmy Lai, a media mogul and democracy campaigner. He is all but certain to be convicted.
-
In the first of a series of stories about China, NPR's John Ruwitch examines shifts in public perceptions about the country's economic future.
-
New allegations from one of the two Canadians arrested in China in 2018 reopened a diplomatic feud between Beijing and Ottawa.
-
President Biden's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping was the big news from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's forum. Scott Simon and John Ruwitch discuss other developments from the week.
-
After hours of talks, the two leaders emerged with agreements to cooperate. Biden even said he and Xi agreed that they should be able to pick up the phone and talk with one another whenever they want. -
President Biden is to hold his first in-person meeting with China's leader, Xi Jinping, in California on Wednesday. The two leaders have a lot to discuss when they sit down.
-
From Taiwan to fentanyl, President Biden and China's leader Xi Jinping have plenty to sort through when the two meet face-to-face for the first time in a year.
