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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China is warning it will respond with "strong measures" if U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi travels to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as its territory.
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A drop in tourism due to political turmoil and the pandemic led to financial woes for the ferry, which has taken passengers across Victoria Harbor for decades. Now there are fears it may go bankrupt. -
The rough treatment of bank protesters in China has cast a spotlight on an under-regulated corner of the banking system. Some depositors are questioning their faith in the ruling Communist Party.
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Testing is the cornerstone of China's aggressive efforts to eradicate Covid-19, and it's become ubiquitous. People are more afraid of being carted off to quarantine than getting sick from the virus.
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Shinzo Abe had been Japan's longest-serving prime minister and remained a force in politics after stepping down in 2020. -
Hong Kong gets a new leader on Friday with strong backing from Beijing, but faces challenges with a sluggish economy that remains closed to the outside world — and China — by COVID controls.
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Angry victims of a multi-million dollar banking scam in China are accusing the government of manipulating health codes to restrict their movement, raising concerns of abuse of power and technology.
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New textbooks contend the territory was never a British colony. The reason: China never recognized the treaties that ceded it to Britain. -
A video of an attack on a group of women at a restaurant in China has touched a raw nerve in a country where many feel women's rights aren't always protected.
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China's foreign minister recently wrapped up a visit to eight Pacific island nations, raising alarm in the U.S. and its allies.
