ChinaFile Launch: Covering China Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Reporting on the fast-changing land that is China has long been an adventure and a challenge. To celebrate the launch of Asia Society's new online magazine, ChinaFile, join us for a discussion with The New York Times about reporting from China in the three and a half decades since the country’s leaders allowed American journalists to return to Beijing.

The panel will be moderated by Arthur Ross Director of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations, Orville Schell, and guests will be five current and former Beijing-based New York Times China correspondents: Fox Butterfield (1979-1981), Nicholas Kristof (1988-1993), Elisabeth Rosenthal (1997-2003), Joseph Kahn (2003-2007) and Edward Wong (2008-present).

This distinguished group of reporters has covered subjects ranging from the political and economic liberalization of the early 1980s, to the Tiananmen Democracy movement, AIDS, SARS, the development and thwarting of the legal profession, Bo Xilai’s downfall, the escape of dissident Chen Guangcheng, and the ushering in of a new generation of leaders. In a country that has changed so much, what, if anything, has remained constant? How does covering China differ from covering other parts of the world? How has the dramatic transformation of China's own media changed the way foreign correspondents report?

What stories remain to be told, and which ones are still out of reach? What are the hardest stories to tell?

Following the panel, join the panelists and the ChinaFile team for a reception and short introduction to ChinaFile by the site's editors.