Jessica Batke is a ChinaFile Senior Editor. She researches China’s domestic political and social affairs, and served as the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Analyst for nearly eight years prior to joining ChinaFile. In 2016, she was a Visiting Academic Fellow at MERICS in Berlin. She holds a B.A. in Linguistics from Pitzer College and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University.
Last Updated: April 19, 2021
Media
11.07.22
ChinaFile Presents: Nury Turkel, No Escape
In his recent book, No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs, attorney and activist Nury Turkel tells his personal story—his birth in a re-education camp in China, his journey to the United States, and his career working to end...
Features
09.29.22
Elections? No Thank You. Performance Reviews? Maybe.
In recent years, both Chinese state and Communist Party organizations have fielded thousands of public opinion polls, on subjects ranging from hospital services, to rural revitalization, to food safety. Yet, much of the information gleaned from...
Media
09.15.22
ChinaFile Presents: Surveillance State—Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control
Wall Street Journal reporters Josh Chin and Liza Lin discussed their new book with ChinaFile Senior Editor Jessica Batke and Arthur Ross Director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations Orville Schell. Surveillance State: Inside China’s...
Notes from ChinaFile
09.09.22Online Posts Purport to Show Severe Lockdown Conditions in Xinjiang
Videos, voice messages, and WeChat posts purporting to show residents in the Ghulja (Yining), Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, area of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region crying out for food or medical attention have appeared online in recent...
Notes from ChinaFile
07.05.22Participation in Xinjiang Surveillance Program Can Lead to Smoother Career Enhancement
Since 2014, authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have, as Human Rights Watch phrases it, sent “cadres from government agencies, state-owned enterprises, and public institutions to regularly visit and surveil people.” The program,...
07.05.22
Visually Understanding the Data on Foreign NGO Representative Offices and Temporary Activities
The China NGO Project has created the following visualizations based on data available on the Ministry of Public Security website, as well as on our own research. To analyze foreign NGO representative offices, we looked at organizations’ countries/...
Viewpoint
02.28.22
In Xinjiang’s Tech Incubators, Innovation Is Inseparable from Repression
Innovation and its benefits to society in Xinjiang have come to encompass both the use of big data to enhance cross-border trade and the use of big data to monitor people inside their own homes. Official documents promoting innovation in Xinjiang...
Features
01.31.22
A Vast Network of ‘New Era Civilization Practice Centers’ Is Beijing’s Latest Bid to Reclaim Hearts and Minds
New Era Civilization Practice Centers are designed to deliver a mix of social services and political indoctrination, to draw China’s citizens ever nearer to the Party by giving them tangible reminders of the Party’s largesse and molding them into...
Media
10.15.21
ChinaFile Presents: In the Camps—China’s High-Tech Penal Colony
Darren Byler joined ChinaFile’s Susan Jakes and Jessica Batke to discuss his new book, In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony. Evidence has mounted in recent years that China’s government has incarcerated more than one million Uyghurs and...
Features
12.20.20
Message Control
Li Wenliang’s death had only been announced a few hours earlier, but Warming High-Tech was already on the case. The company had been monitoring online mentions of the COVID-whistleblower’s name in the several days since police had detained and...
Features
10.30.20
State of Surveillance
Across China, in its most crowded cities and tiniest hamlets, government officials are on an unprecedented surveillance shopping spree. The coordination of the resulting millions of cameras and other snooping technology spread across the country...
Viewpoint
03.18.20
‘This Is Not Forensic Genetics Anymore. This Is Surveillance.’
Yves Moreau, a professor specializing in human clinical genomics, had been emailing with Promega since 2016, warning its communications department first about how Promega’s products might be used in a proposed DNA databasing project in Kuwait, and...