Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian is a journalist who covers China from Washington, D.C. She previously worked as a national security reporter for The Daily Beast and as an editor and reporter for Foreign Policy magazine. She was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Berlin and was previously a Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. She previously spent four years in China. Allen-Ebrahimian holds an M.A. in East Asian studies from Yale University, as well as a graduate certificate from the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.
Last Updated: November 5, 2019
Media
07.21.15
China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman
A woman’s solitary voice, earthy and low, rises above the seated worshipers. More than 100 women stand, bow, and touch their foreheads to the floor as a female imam leads evening prayers at a women-only mosque during the first week of Islam’s holy...
Media
07.02.15
Who Would China Vote for in 2016?
As 2016 draws nearer, a cascade of mostly Republican presidential hopefuls have announced their entry into the U.S. presidential race. Until a successor to current President Barack Obama is selected in November 2016, Americans can count on an...
Media
06.26.15
‘Why Do Chinese Lack Creativity?’
On June 19, the University of Washington and elite Tsinghua University in Beijing announced a new, richly funded cooperative program to be based in Seattle and focused on a topic that has become a sore point in China: innovation. Republican...
Media
06.17.15
American Students in China: It’s Not as Authoritarian as We Thought
For some American students about to embark on a study abroad trip to China, the U.S. media reports of Chinese Internet censorship, jailing of dissidents, and draconian population control laws may dominate their perception of the country. But after...
Media
05.11.15
Interactive Map: Follow the Roads, Railways, and Pipelines on China’s New Silk Road
Foreign Policy has put together an interactive guide tracking Beijing’s victories and obstacles along the new Silk Road. The list of participating countries is still not finalized, but with China forking out billions in trade deals and preferential...
Media
04.30.15
Will China Ban Katy Perry?
On April 28, American pop singer Katy Perry gave her first-ever concert in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the self-governing island which mainland China considers to be its sovereign territory. Tense relations between Taiwan and mainland China mean...
Media
04.15.15
Online Support–and Mockery–Await Chinese Feminists After Release
On April 13, Chinese authorities released on bail five feminist activists detained for over a month without formal charges. Despite tight censorship surrounding their detention, support on Chinese social media and thinly veiled media criticism...
Media
04.02.15
‘Obama Is Sitting Alone at a Bar Drinking a Consolation Beer’
Danish and Chinese netizens have just shared in a collective guffaw at America’s expense. The online lampoonery came after Denmark announced on March 28 its intent to join the Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), a China-led initiative...
Media
03.26.15
Brother, Can You Spare a Renminbi?
Who deserves to be poor in modern China? One man in China’s southern Zhejiang province certainly seemed sympathetic: Each day, he pushed himself along the street on a homemade wooden skateboard, his apparently paralyzed legs tucked under his body,...
Media
03.10.15
China’s Good Girls Want Tattoos
“It seems that Chinese men don’t want to marry a girl with tattoos,” complained one such girl on the Chinese online discussion platform Douban. She posted a picture of her body art, an abstract design on her lower back. “In East Asian cultural...
Media
03.03.15
The Word That Broke the Chinese Internet
It might be gibberish, but it’s also a sign of the times. The word duang, pronounced “dwong,” is spreading like wildfire throughout China’s active Internet—even though 1.3 billion Chinese people still haven’t figured out what it means. In fact, its...
Conversation
01.16.15
Why Did The West Weep for Paris But Not for Kunming?
In the days since the attacks that killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Chinese netizens have watched the outpouring of solidarity. As our colleagues at Foreign Policy reported earlier this week, the...