REPORTING FROM BEIJING with Jonathan Cheng ’05

It has become a cliché that the U.S.-China relationship is the world’s most important bilateral relationship. But how does it feel on the ground, and what tools do Western journalists have in reporting on one of the world’s most important — and most difficult-to-cover — countries? Jonathan Cheng ’05, who has spent the last seven years in Beijing leading The Wall Street Journal, including through the long COVID-19 years, shares how the country and the reporting environment have changed during that time.

Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, overseeing the Journal’s coverage of the world’s second-largest economy across a range of areas including politics, economics, business, technology, and society. He oversees a team of more than two dozen correspondents and researchers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, and New York with responsibility for the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.  Previously, Jonathan was the Seoul bureau chief for the Journal, running coverage of the Korean peninsula, including North Korea and South Korean politics and business. He began his career as an intern in the Journal’s Hong Kong bureau, and has also worked as a markets reporter in the Journal’s New York office.  Jonathan speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, French, and Korean. A native of Toronto, Canada. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in history. He lives in Beijing and has traveled to North Korea twice.