OPC Foundation Scholars Reporting on Greater China: A Timeline of Impact
By William J. Holstein, President Emeritus, OPC Foundation
For more than a quarter of a century, the Overseas Press Club Foundation has created a steady flow of Greater China correspondents and authors. Helping the Western media cover China and helping establish a major pipeline for Chinese nationals to become Western-trained journalists both seem to be noble goals. Many have gone on to report for leading global news organizations, write influential books, and earn some of journalism's highest honors. Here are highlights from some of the OPC Foundation scholars who have built distinguished careers in China-focused reporting and publishing.
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1998
Edward Wong, David Schweisberg Scholar | University of California, Berkeley
In 1998, Edward Wong, then a student at the University of California at Berkeley won the OPC Foundation David Schweisberg scholarship, named for the Beijing bureau chief of United Press International, who tragically died of a heart attack at age 39. Wong was born in the Washington, D.C. area to immigrant parents and hence was a U.S. citizen, giving him a measure of journalistic freedom that Chinese journalists who retain Chinese passports often lack. From 2008 to 2016, he reported from China for The New York Times and became its Beijing bureau chief. He is now based in Washington as a diplomatic correspondent for the Times. He authored a book entitled, At The Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning With China, which appeared in 2024.
2001
Lingling Wei, Reuters Scholar | New York University
Lingling Wei, born and raised in China, was able to obtain U.S. citizenship status over time and was considered an American journalist when she worked for The Wall Street Journal in Beijing. She worked closely with Bob Davis and co-authored a book with him entitled, Superpower Showdown. She was among the American correspondents expelled by the Chinese government in 2020 in response to the American government’s restrictions on Chinese state-owned media representatives in the United States. She is now based in New York as the paper’s chief China correspondent.
Melissa Chan, Alexander Kendrick Scholar | Yale University
Melissa Chan was born in Hong Kong, then a British colony. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was three years old. In 2005, she completed a Masters of Science in comparative politics at the London School of Economics. In 2007, Al Jazeera English hired Chan to work in the network’s Beijing bureau where she wrote about local governments confiscating land and so-called “black jails.” In 2012, Chan left China after her visa and press credentials were not renewed. In subsequent years, Chan’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, VICE News, POLITICO, and other news outlets.
2002
Wei Gu, Reuters Scholar | New York University
Wei Gu became a Hong Kong-based reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, serving as the China Wealth and Luxury Editor from 2012 to 2016. She wrote the weekly "People's Money" column for the WSJ Asian edition, covering markets and business before leaving in August 2016 to join Apple's public relations team in Shanghai.
2006
Michelle Loyalka, Irene Corbally Kuhn Scholar | University of Missouri
Michelle Loyalka lived in China for 13 years, during which time she wrote a language-learning textbook, launched a business consulting company, co-hosted a radio talk show in Mandarin, and headed the educational products division of a Chinese software company. She is the author of Eating Bitterness: Stories from the Front Lines of China's Great Urban Migration.
2008
Yu Sun, Standard & Poor's Scholar | New York University
After winning the OPC Foundation scholarship Yu Sun became head of network research for the Financial Times in New York for about 10 years. He moved to Beijing as the paper’s China economic research reporter in 2019 before returning to New York in 2024 as the paper’s investment correspondent. In that role, he has written about such subjects as Chinese company listings on American stock exchanges and about how American universities manage their endowments.
2011
Sisi Tang, David Schweisberg Scholar | Northwestern University
A native of China, Sisi Tang is fluent in Mandarin and southern Chinese dialects and conversant in French and Turkish. She had an OPC Foundation internship in a Reuters bureau in China. She is now a writer and traveler based in Istanbul for an online left-of-center magazine called In These Times.
2012
Beibei Bao, Roy Rowan Scholar | Columbia University
A native of Beijing, Beibei Bao became a researcher at The New York Times’ Shanghai bureau before eventually landing with the New York-based Rhodium group, a top China research outfit. The Rhodium website says Bao “monitors and analyzes business, regulatory and political developments in China for RHG clients, and helps oversee the firm’s China research projects.” Beibei Bao is co-author of the book Broken Abacus: A More Accurate Gauge of China’s Economyand her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters.
Eva Dou, Standard & Poor's Scholar | University of Missouri
Eva started off in Taiwan for the Wall Street Journal before becoming the paper’s China Technology Reporter based on the mainland. She continued with the Journal until jumping to the Washington Post in 2020. She returned to Washington to 2023 to become the Post’s Technology Policy reporter. She is the author of the book House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company.
Jia Feng, Theo Wilson Scholar | Johns Hopkins University
With both undergraduate and master’s degrees from Nanjing University, Jia Feng is especially interested in the inner workings of the financial world and their affects on peoples’ lives. She had an OPC Foundation internship in the Reuters bureau in Beijing. She is now at Communications Officer at International Monetary Fund based in Washington D.C.
2013
Xiaoqing Pi, Standard & Poor's Scholar | University of California, Berkeley
The Foundation sent Xiaoqing Pi to Taipei for an internship with Reuters. She then worked for Bloomberg for about six years before becoming a China economist for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong.
2014
Meng Meng, David Schweisberg Scholar | University of Southern California
Meng Meng had an internship with Bloomberg before moving to Beijing in 2015 as a breaking news reporter for Reuters. She is now the agency’s China Energy correspondent.
2016
Dake Kang, Fritz Beebe Scholar | University of Chicago
The Foundation sent Dake Kang, a Korean-American, to the Associated Press bureau in Bangkok for a fellowship. He later was hired full-time in the Beijing bureau and was present in Wuhan when the Corona virus pandemic broke in 2020. He’s reported from across Central, South, and East Asia, and was a Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting in China. In 2026, he won the Overseas Press Club Malcolm Forbes and Morton Frank award for best business or economic reporting from abroad for a series on how American technology companies helped the Chinese government build one of the world’s most repressive systems of control of its people, both at home and abroad. Days after his win was announced, he also won a Pulitzer for the same body of work.
2017
Yi-Ling Liu, Fritz Beebe Scholar | Yale University
Yi-Ling Liu joined the Associated Press in Hong Kong through the OPC Foundation fellowship, then freelanced in Beijing from 2018–2022. Most recently she served as China editor at Rest of World. Now a journalist-in-residence at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, she authored a book, a social history of the Chinese Internet, entitled The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on The Chinese Internet.
2018
Yifan Yu, Jerry Flint Scholar | New York University
Yifan Yu covers technology and business for Nikkei Asia and the Financial Times focusing on the flow of innovation, investment, and influence between Asia and the United States. Her reporting topics range from China's competition with Silicon Valley to the expansion of major U.S. tech companies across Asia and the broader impact of technology on politics, communities, and everyday life on both sides of the Pacific.
Daphne Zhang, Fritz Beebe Scholar | Columbia University
Daphne Zhang is Reuters' China Agriculture Correspondent, covering the country's agriculture, livestock, and dairy sectors. Before joining Reuters, she was a senior correspondent at Bloomberg Law in New York. Her reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, Law360, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She has received awards for investigative reporting and the New York Financial Writers Association Scholarship at Columbia Journalism School.
2019
Echo Wang, Freedman Scholar | Columbia University
Echo Wang, who worked for French and German publications in her native China before going to Columbia University, won the OPC Foundation fellowship with Reuters in New York. On staff, she covered Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) for years and in February 2026 was promoted to be the agency’s Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) deals editor.
Sarah Wu, Roy Rowan Scholar | Harvard University
Sarah Wu, a Canadian Chinese, launched her career with Reuters and was based in Taipei for several years. She is now a China correspondent for the Economist based in Beijing.
2020
Matthew DeButts, Fritz Beebe Scholar | Stanford University
Matthew worked as a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing and was also a contributing editor to the Economist Intelligence Unit. He is currently a Knight-Hennessy scholar at Stanford.
2022
Angelique Chen, Reuters Scholar | New York University
A native Taiwanese and a graduate of National Taiwan University, Angelique Chen had an OPC Foundation fellowship with Reuters. She later joined IPVM and covers the physical security industry, which includes security cameras, many of them made in China. She is based in New York.
Cadence Quaranta, David Schweisberg Scholar | Northwestern University
Cadence Quaranta had spent years in China as a child and became proficient in Mandarin. She is now a reporter for Taiwan Plus television in Taipei, covering relations between China and Taiwan among other subjects.
2023
Chris Chang, Seymour and Audrey Topping Scholar | University of California, Berkeley
Chris Chang was the first Topping Scholar award winner. He grew up in Taiwan and is a graduate of National Taipei University. He had an internship at the Washington Post. At the OPC Foundation Scholar Awards Chang stated that his background gave him a “front-row seat” to witness how a nation and its people can survive between two superpowers.
Rayna Song, Standard & Poor's Scholar | Northwestern University
Rayna interned at USA Today, Le Monde and People’s Daily in China. She published more than 100 articles before joining the Boston Consulting Group and then Capital One. She speaks Mandarin, French and Spanish.
Francis Tang, David Schweisberg Scholar | Syracuse University
Born and raised in Chongching in southwestern China, Francis Tang recognized at an early age that he wanted to leave China. He started studying Japanese and eventually attended Syracuse University where he perfected his English at the student newspaper. Fully trilingual, he became a correspondent for the Japan Times in Tokyo, writing in English. He works now as a management consulting analyst for Accenture.
Yucheng Tang, Richard Pyle Scholar | New York University
Yu-Cheng Tang was born in China and worked for two major Chinese publications before attending New York University. The Foundation sent him to the Associated Press bureau in Bangkok for a fellowship. He is now working for ChicoSol, a local California newsroom that provides cultural-crossing feature writing and investigative journalism through California Local News Fellowship. His work has appeared in The New York Times and The Associated Press.
2023
Chris Kuo, Seymour and Audrey Topping Scholar | University of Limerick
With Irish and Chinese heritage and fluency in Chinese, Chris Kuo grew up partly in Tianjin, China, which fostered his interest in religion and politics. He has written for major outlets that include the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. He is currently completing his second year as an OPC Foundation Wall Street Journal News Associate.
2026
Jinger Zhang, Jerry Flint Scholar | Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY
For the first 25 years of Jinger’s life in China, she paid little attention to politics or journalism, following peers in her belief in the Communist Party. During a program that brought her to New York, she discovered a book about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. She soon developed a love of journalism and a passion for press freedom she had not previously been exposed to. She previously worked in PR at BlueFocus in Beijing, freelanced for Southern Weekly, interned at The Xylom, and now contributes to The Sunset Post in New York.
Kelly Liu, Seymour and Audrey Topping Scholar | University of California, Berkeley
As a child, Kelly Liu was deeply affected by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, which killed more than 70,000 people. Years later, while volunteering during the devastating 2021 Zhengzhou floods, she witnessed the impacts of extreme weather firsthand. These experiences inspired her to explore the links between climate change and natural disasters, leading her to co-found Tipping Point, China's first digital magazine dedicated to climate change. Kelly has reported for The Paper, Sixth Tone, and Southern Weekly, covering global crises from human trafficking. She is dedicated to humanizing environmental change through visual storytelling.
Seven Wu, Seymour and Audrey Topping Scholar | University of California, Berkeley
Seven developed a passion for ethnographic filmmaking while documenting the struggles of Chinese women whose children were violently taken by fathers, using a legal system that does not protect mothers’ rights. She has also examined the human cost of China’s AI economy, profiling rural mothers who labor as data labelers for four cents per task while seeking independence from family life. Seven plans to continue challenging stereotypes of Chinese women and women across the world through international storytelling.
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From Beijing bureau chiefs and Pulitzer Prize winners to authors, correspondents, editors and researchers, OPC Foundation scholars have helped shape international understanding of Greater China for nearly three decades. Their accomplishments reflect the Foundation's long standing commitment to support the next generation of globally minded journalists.
Much of this information has been compiled from publicly available sources, and we apologize for any inadvertent errors.