Anthony Kuhn
Anthony Kuhn is NPR's correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea, reporting on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the great diversity of Asia's countries and cultures. Before moving to Seoul in 2018, he traveled to the region to cover major stories including the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster.
Kuhn previously served two five-year stints in Beijing, China, for NPR, during which he covered major stories such as the Beijing Olympics, geopolitical jousting in the South China Sea, and the lives of Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities in China's borderlands.
He took a particular interest in China's rich traditional culture and its impact on the current day. He has recorded the sonic calling cards of itinerant merchants in Beijing's back alleys, and the descendants of court musicians of the Tang Dynasty. He has profiled petitioners and rights lawyers struggling for justice, and educational reformers striving to change the way Chinese think.
From 2010-2013, Kuhn was NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among other stories, he explored Borneo and Sumatra, and witnessed the fight to preserve the biodiversity of the world's oldest forests. He also followed Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, as she rose from political prisoner to head of state.
Kuhn served as NPR's correspondent in London from 2004-2005, covering stories including the London subway bombings and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall.
Besides his major postings, Kuhn's journalistic horizons have been expanded by various short-term assignments. These produced stories including wartime black humor in Iraq, musical diplomacy by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, North Korea, a kerfuffle over the plumbing in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Pakistani artists' struggle with religious extremism in Lahore, and the Syrian civil war's spillover into neighboring Lebanon.
Prior to joining NPR, Kuhn wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review and freelanced for various news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. He majored in French literature as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, and later did graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American studies in Nanjing.
-
The South Korean government is targeting a medical group, as a doctor-walkout throws the country's health care system into chaos. -
A walk-out by South Korean doctors has hobbled the country's medical system. Most of them have defied a government ultimatum to return to work by Thursday.
-
Prabowo, who had been barred from entering the U.S. for two decades for alleged human rights abuses, has the backing of the current president. -
The nation's younger voters may decide whether the world's third-largest democracy maintains economic growth and political reform or slides backward to the authoritarian politics of a generation ago.
-
Residents of a South Korean island attacked by North Korea in 2010 fear it could become a flashpoint again. They hid in air raid shelters in early January after North Korea conducted artillery drills. -
Middle- and upper-class Chinese are joining a migration wave to Japan. -
As the new year begins, North Korea is signaling a major policy shift, abandoning efforts to unite with its neighbor to the South. It is even threatening to take the South by force of arms.
-
In South Korea's latest outburst of political violence, the country's opposition leader has been stabbed in public ahead of general elections in April 2024.
-
As morning dawns in Japan, the country begins to survey the damage after a series of major new year's day earthquakes and subsequent tsunami warnings.
-
In Japan, a female former soldier's high-profile court case win is seen as both a victory for human rights, and a setback for Japan's efforts to beef up its military.
