Louisa Lim
Beijing Correspondent Louisa Lim is currently attending the University of Michigan as a Knight-Wallace Fellow. She will return to her regular role in 2014.
Based in Beijing, NPR foreign correspondent Louisa Lim finds China a hugely diverse, vibrant, fascinating place. "Everywhere you look and everyone you talk to has a fascinating story," she notes, adding that she's "spoiled with choices" of stories to cover. In her reports, Lim takes "NPR listeners to places they never knew existed. I want to give them an idea of how China is changing and what that might mean for them."
Lim opened NPR's Shanghai bureau in February 2006, but she's reported for NPR from up Tibetan glaciers and down the shaft of a Shaanxi coalmine. She made a very rare reporting trip to North Korea, covered illegal abortions in Guangxi province, and worked on the major multimedia series on religion in China "New Believers: A Religious Revolution in China." Lim has been part of NPR teams who multiple awards, including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, a Peabody and two Edward R. Murrow awards, for their coverage of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and the Beijing Olympics. She's been honored in the Human Rights Press Awards, as well as winning prizes for her multimedia work.
In 1995, Lim moved to Hong Kong and worked at the Eastern Express newspaper until its demise six months later and then for TVB Pearl, the local television station. Eventually Lim joined the BBC, working first for five years at the World Service in London, and then as a correspondent at the BBC in Beijing for almost three years.
Lim found her path into journalism after graduating with a degree in Modern Chinese studies from Leeds University in England. She worked as an editor, polisher, and translator at a state-run publishing company in China, a job that helped her strengthen her Chinese. Simultaneously, she began writing for a magazine and soon realized her talents fit perfectly with journalism.
NPR London correspondent Rob Gifford, who previously spent six years reporting from China for NPR, thinks that Lim is uniquely suited for his former post. "Not only does Louisa have a sharp journalistic brain," Gifford says, "but she sees stories from more than one angle, and can often open up a whole new understanding of an issue through her reporting. By listening to Louisa's reports, NPR listeners will certainly get a feel for what 21st century China is like. It is no longer a country of black and white, and the complexity is important, a complexity that you always feel in Louisa's intelligent, nuanced reporting."
Out of all of her reporting, Lim says she most enjoys covering stories that are quirky or slightly offbeat. However, she gravitates towards reporting on arts stories with a deeper significance. For example, early in her tenure at NPR, Lim highlighted a musical on stage in Seoul, South Korea, based on a North Korean prison camp. The play, and Lim's piece, highlighted the ignorance of many South Koreans of the suffering of their northern neighbors.
Married with a son and a daughter, Lim recommends any NPR listeners travelling to Shanghai stop by a branch of her husband's Yunnan restaurant, Southern Barbarian, where they can snack on deep fried bumblebees, a specialty from that part of southwest China. In Beijing, her husband owns and runs what she calls "the first and best fish and chip shop in China", Fish Nation.
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China's President Hu Jintao has sworn in a new leader for Hong Kong amid large public protests. The island is marking the 15th anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty at a time when mistrust toward China is at its highest level since Hong Kong's handover in 1997.
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For decades, China's Communist Party has declared that corruption threatens its survival. But a state-run paper recently argued that corruption couldn't be stamped out, so it should be contained to acceptable levels. -
The 54-year-old artist says officials have lifted the strict bail conditions imposed after his release from detention last year. But he says he is not allowed to leave China and that he was prevented from attending a hearing this week on his tax evasion case. -
In China, uncertainty still surrounds the fate of the activist Chen Guangcheng, who remains in a hospital receiving treatment after his dramatic escape from house arrest to the U.S. embassy. Chen says he's had positive indications that he will be able to apply for a passport to study in the U.S. At the same time, he remains under guard, and many of his supporters are being punished for their part in his escape.
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In a statement on its website Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said activist Chen Guangcheng would be allowed to apply to study abroad. Chen, who had escaped from house arrest, earlier said he wanted asylum in the U.S. But before that, he had told U.S. officials he would like to remain on Chinese soil.
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A selection committee in Hong Kong has chosen a former Cabinet chief as the southern Chinese financial hubs next leader. The voters were handpicked by Beijing. Leung Chun-ying's term will start in July.
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Recent scandals have apparently cost Bo Xilai his job as Communist Party chief in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Bo had once seemed headed straight for China's top leadership body, but corruption allegations and an imbroglio involving his former right-hand man helped drive him from power. -
Against the political pageantry of the National People's Congress, China's Premier delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address. The headline figure: a growth target of 7.5 percent. It's the first time that's dipped below 8 percent since 2004.
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Historic buildings in Beijing are being demolished in the pursuit of quick profit. Even the home of the architect who urged Mao Zedong to preserve Beijing's old city has fallen to the wreckers' ball, sparking considerable outrage. And the epidemic of destruction is spreading to new buildings, too. -
A South Korean man meant for his Twitter profile picture, with its backdrop of a North Korean flag, to be a visual parody of North Korean news programs. Now, Park Jong-kun may be charged with violating a security law from 1948. Critics say it's being used to stifle free speech on North Korea.
