The China Exit Interview

Co-hosted with The Paulson Institute, this panel featured long-time China correspondents working for western media outlets, including Bill Bishop '95 of The Sinocism China Newsletter, Gady Epstein of The Economist, Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei, and Evan Osnos of The New Yorker. The discussion was moderated by Paulson Institute Vice Chairman Evan A. Feigenbaum

China can seem like a mysterious and bewildering place to outsiders, but for a close-knit group of foreign media correspondents who spent many years living and working in the "middle kingdom," it was a second home. However, in recent years the Chinese government has tightened its media censorship and cracked down hard on civil society groups pressing for reforms.

Panelists shared their rich perspectives on life in modern China and the challenges of doing business in a land where growth is all-consuming. Each speaker ultimately decided the time had come to end their China adventure and decamp to the US as the atmosphere under the Xi Jinping administration was growing increasingly critical of foreign influences and uncomfortable for outsiders.