Chun Han Wong

Chun Han Wong has covered China for The Wall Street Journal since 2014. He was part of a team of reporters named as Pulitzer Prize finalists for their coverage of China’s autocratic turn under Xi Jinping. As a Journal correspondent in Beijing and Hong Kong, Wong has written widely on subjects spanning elite politics, Communist Party doctrine, human and labor rights, as well as defense and diplomatic affairs. Born and raised in Singapore, Wong is a native speaker of English and Mandarin Chinese. He studied international history at the London School of Economics, where he graduated with first-class honors and won the Derby Bryce Prize.

Beijing Is Pouring Resources into Its UN Human Rights Review—All to Prevent Any Real Review from Taking Place

On January 23, a large delegation of Chinese officials will appear at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) to try to defend the indefensible. For the first time since 2018, China will undergo a Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in which UN member states evaluate one another’s human rights records. When Xi Jinping took power just over a decade ago, China was already an authoritarian, one-party state, but since then he has tightened control so severely that persecution of dissidents and government monitoring of virtually all areas of life have become common.

Rana Siu Inboden

Rana Siu Inboden is a Senior Fellow with the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She serves as a consultant on human rights, democracy, and rule of law projects in Asia for a number of non-governmental organizations and conducts research related to international human rights, Chinese foreign policy, the Uyghur crisis, the effectiveness of international human rights and democracy projects, and authoritarian collaboration in the United Nations. Her first book, China and the International Human Rights Regime(Cambridge, 2021) examines China’s role in the international human rights regime between 1982 and 2017. Inboden has also done pro bono advocacy for persecuted churches in China.

Previously, Inboden served in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, where her primary responsibilities included managing the State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Fund China program and promoting U.S. human rights and democracy policy in China and North Korea. She also served at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs, and in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research where she covered U.S.-China relations.

Inboden holds a D.Phil. from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. She obtained an M.A. at Stanford University in East Asian Studies and a B.S. at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She was awarded a U.S. State Department Superior Honor Award for her work in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Managing the Taiwan Election Aftermath

A ChinaFile Conversation

Lai Ching-te is now president-elect of Taiwan, after a hard-fought race in which Beijing made its preference for his opponents clear. Lai is an outspoken advocate for Taiwan’s sovereignty, though he has said he wants to keep the status quo with China and that there is no need to declare independence since it is already a de facto reality. How can Taipei best negotiate another rocky period with China? What role should Washington play—and what should it avoid?

Hilton Yip

Hilton Yip is a journalist and political analyst based in Taipei. He has been in East Asia for over 13 years, having also worked in Beijing and Hong Kong in journalism and business editorial roles. He has written extensively about geopolitical, business, and socio-economic issues in Taiwan, as well as in Hong Kong and mainland China. He speaks English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

Books Xinjiang

A display of books seized by the Ürümchi Public Security Bureau during home inspections in 2018. This image was included in an internal police dataset obtained by The Intercept.

Updates to Our Database of Arrests under the Hong Kong National Security Law

We updated our suite of graphics tracking the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The law, which went into effect on June 30, 2020, and the allegation of “sedition,” have been used to arrest 286 individuals, charge 156, and convict 68 as of the end of 2023.

Reasons cited for some of the arrests in the second half of 2023 include wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong” and sharing social media posts of the “Glory” protest anthem. 10 people were arrested in August for their connection to the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which received donations to advocate for sanctions against Hong Kong and to assist organizations supporting people in exile.

You can see our full dataset and graphics here.

Grzegorz Stec

Grzegorz Stec is an Analyst in the MERICS Brussels Office. His research focuses on EU-China relations, including their institutional framework, strategic discourse deployed by the two sides, and the EU’s common foreign policy building efforts. He also monitors Poland-China and wider Central and Eastern Europe-China relations.

Prior to joining MERICS, he founded the Brussels-based non-profit platform “EU-China Hub” and co-founded a Beijing-based consultancy company focused on the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative. He has also worked as a contributor to Oxford Analytica.

Stec holds a Master of Science degree in Contemporary Chinese Studies (University of Oxford, as a recipient of the Jenkins Memorial Scholarship), a Master of Economics degree in China Studies (Yenching Academy of Peking University), and three BA degrees in International Relations, Comparative Studies of Civilizations, and Asia Studies (Jagiellonian University in Krakow). He also studied Chinese language at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Beijing Language and Culture University.