How does investigative reporting happen in China? A conversation with Li Xin of Caixin

Li Xin 李昕 is the managing director of Caixin Global, the English-language arm of China’s most authoritative financial news source, Caixin. For over 10 years, she has worked closely with the editor-in-chief of Caixin, Hu Shuli 胡舒立, whose famously fearless pursuit of investigative reporting has shaped the business landscape and pushed the boundaries of business reporting in a country known for its tight control of media. Kaiser sat down with Xin on March 22, at the 2017 CoreNet Global Summit in Shanghai, and asked for her insights into how investigative reporting happens in China, what makes Caixin different from other publications, and how and why China-based media is different than foreign media. They also discussed what one might call the “new normal” of issues keeping China’s leaders up at night, including risk in the real estate market, corporate debt, environmental contamination, and, of course, Trump. Originally from the megacity of Chongqing, Xin graduated from the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, and received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Outside of her work at Caixin, she is known for a recent stint as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Chinese edition. Disclosure: SupChina partners with Caixin on the Caixin-Sinica Business Brief podcast. Recommendations: Xin: The work of Haizi 海子, a famous poet of the 1980s who tragically committed suicide at the age of 25. Kaiser: Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel, a brief series about the murder of Neil Heywood by the wife of jailed politician Bo Xilai, written by BBC reporter Carrie Gracie.