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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The two leaders met in Beijing and discussed the war in Ukraine, a week after China released a position paper, calling for a cease-fire and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. -
As Russia's war in Ukraine enters its second year, Beijing has repeatedly said it would broker any cease-fire talks, a proposal Ukrainians are wary of because of China's close ties with Moscow. -
The meeting is the highest level of contact between the two nations since the discovery of a Chinese balloon in U.S. airspace at the beginning of this month. -
The two diplomats will meet for the first time in the aftermath of the balloon crisis earlier this month. -
FBI and State Department officials gave reporters an update on some of what the U.S. has learned so far about the balloon. -
In a sign of continued tense relations, the U.S. says China declined the request for a phone call between top defense officials -
Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off his trip to China after the discovery of a Chinese "surveillance" balloon over the U.S. It's the latest setback in an increasingly fraught relationship. -
Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesman known for his combative approach, was reassigned. The change is mostly tactical, but analysts see a window of opportunity to improve China-U.S. relations. -
The reluctance of many citizens — especially the elderly — to get vaccinated is a problem for a government facing intense pressure to roll back strict COVID policies. -
Extraordinary street protests in some Chinese cities and campuses over the weekend put Xi Jinping's controversial approach to the pandemic under the spotlight.
