Economist Arthur Kroeber argued last week that China´s leadership accepts that its authoritarian strength triggers off collateral damage: it will never become a leader in technology or soft power, including censorship. Journalist Ian Johnson disagrees in the ChinaFile, the people might not accept that trade-off.Read More →
Tibetian Buddhism has become popular in the West, but also among rich Han Chinese. Journalist Ian Johnson discusses with author John Osburn the reasons behind this popularity in a two-piece interview for the New York Times.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson meets James Leibold, eminent researcher on China´s policies on ethnic minorities. After a dive into China´s historical take on Xinjiang, both dive into the current tense situation and recent violence. Ian Johnson asks questions for the New York Times.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson joins a radio debate at “On the Point” on the NPR on the blogger Zhou Xiaoping, who was last month endorsed by president Xi Jinping. Xi, or at least his speech writers, are trying to regain the ideological high-grounds, says Ian Johnson. They are looking for new moral values, and Zhou fits into this picture. His message ´proud to be Chinese´, comes with an anti-American slant. He is criticizing Western media when they report about China, tells Johnson, but also himself not really sticking to the facts when talking about the US.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson interviewed civil-right lawyer Teng Biao on the current political situation, just ahead of the annual plenum of the Communist Party for the New York Review of Books. A fragment about the Re-education Through Labor Camps.Read More →
Farming has been for 4,000 years the keystone of China´s civilization. But today it is dragging its economy, changed into a burden rather than an asset, writes journalist Ian Johnson in the New York Times. The government wants to move farmers to the cities, sometimes against their will.Read More →
China celebrates on Tuesday its first ´martyrs´day´ on September 30, a expression of new-found patriotism to remember those who died in fights with foreign powers. Journalist Ian Johnson at the New York Times digs into the reasons for this new celebration.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson interviewed Chinese intellectuals and asked them about Ilham Tohti, the economist and Uighur activist who was arrested in January. For the New York Review of Books looks for a reason why the moderate intellectual was arrested. China does not like moderate Uighurs, is one of his conclusions.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson interviewed sexologist Li Yinhe for the New York Review of Books on her work on same-sex marriages, the Party, SM, orgies and the position of women in China. Li Yinhe believes the position of women has greatly improved since 1949.Read More →
Writer focusing on civil society, culture and religion; senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. Awarded with a Pulitzer prize, Ian Johnson worked for twelve years for the Wall Street Journal as feature writer and bureau chief. He is now a regular contributor to the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and National Geographic. He travels from Beijing and Berlin.Read More →