
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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China has put the finishing touches on a sweeping leadership reshuffle that has been years in the making and puts trusted allies of leader Xi Jinping in key spots throughout the administration.
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Xi Jinping's allies and loyalists are expected to be installed in other key posts in the coming days, completing a sweeping power grab in China.
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping's rare explicit criticism of the U.S. was followed on Tuesday by a barrage of scorn and criticism aimed squarely at Washington from China's new foreign minister.
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Outgoing premier Li Keqiang told delegates at the National People's Congress that China is aiming to rebound economically after COVID slowed them down
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The two diplomats will meet for the first time in the aftermath of the balloon crisis earlier this month.
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FBI and State Department officials gave reporters an update on some of what the U.S. has learned so far about the balloon.
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In a sign of continued tense relations, the U.S. says China declined the request for a phone call between top defense officials