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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Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off his trip to China after the discovery of a Chinese "surveillance" balloon over the U.S. It's the latest setback in an increasingly fraught relationship. -
President Biden met Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday, as the administration lobbies the Netherlands to join tough restrictions on China's ability to acquire microchips and equipment.
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Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman known for his combative approach, was reassigned. The change is mostly tactical, but analysts see a window of opportunity to improve China-U.S. relations.
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China has ended mandatory quarantine for inbound travelers — dismantling one of the final pieces of its "zero COVID" policy. The change will have a big impact on the global economy and for visitors.
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Protesters say Apple has kept tools that help circumvent censorship in China off its App store inside the country. Now it has to contend with pressure from Chinese citizens who aren't happy about it.
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China's state media has done an about-face on COVID-19 — from claiming it posed a deadly threat to the country to comparing it to the flu. The sudden shift raises questions among Chinese citizens.
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The reluctance of many citizens — especially the elderly — to get vaccinated is a problem for a government facing intense pressure to roll back strict COVID policies.
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The recent protests against the Chinese government's tough pandemic control policies have ended with a police crackdown. There are some signs though that protests have been a catalyst for change.
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Extraordinary street protests in some Chinese cities and campuses over the weekend put Xi Jinping's controversial approach to the pandemic under the spotlight.
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China's strict zero covid policy has created a rare opportunity for political dissent.
