The Malaysian-born Mei Fong is an author and journalist who started her journalism career as a reporter at The New Paper after graduating from the National University of Singapore. In 1999 she moved to New York for her Masters in International Affairs at Columbia University under a scholarship from Singapore’s Lee Foundation.
She joined the Wall Street Journal in 2001 where she won a shared Pulitzer for her stories on China’s transformative process ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She is believed to be the first Malaysian to win a Pulitzer. Her stories on China’s migrant workers also won a 2006 Human Rights Press Award from Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Correspondents Club, as well as awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia and Society of Professional Journalist.
After leaving the China bureau, she was on faculty at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications. She is currently a fellow at the think tank New America.
Mei shared her insights on the impact of the one child policy on China’s citizens and her experiences reporting on the topic, which captured in her book One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment.
She was joined by two more distinguished panelists with extensive experience reporting on China: former China bureau chief for The Straits Times, Peh Shing Huei, and Professor Joon-Nie Lau (JRN ‘00) from the NTU School of Communications.
