Chai Jing: China’s Lesley Stahl returns to highlight on YouTube

For a lot of viewers from China, 49-year-old Chai Jing was on the pinnacle of tv information. In 2023, she resurfaced on YouTube, and her program has change into one of the crucial well-liked abroad Chinese language-language information productions.

Chai Jing

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Chai Jing

HONG KONG — Weeks earlier than Ukraine stated males from China are combating for Russia, a Chinese language journalist spoke to one in all them on YouTube. From a nook of her book-adorned front room, Chai Jing, a outstanding tv reporter who left the highlight of China’s state broadcaster a decade in the past, video-calls the Chinese language mercenary stranded in japanese Ukraine whereas serving within the Russian military.

The sound of gunfire echoes within the background. The person, who’s wearing camouflage and goes by the alias Makalong, tells Chai that many Chinese language who take part in Russia’s facet of the battle are influenced by nationalistic motion dramas equivalent to Wolf Warrior. However after witnessing the fact of Russia’s aggression, he tells Chai that he regrets his resolution. “The battlefield is merciless, like a true version of hell,” he says. “I hope China will not become involved in a war.”

Given Beijing’s ambiguity towards the Russia-Ukraine battle, Chai’s interview tackles a delicate matter for any Chinese language journalist to deal with. Together with a follow-up episode on Chinese language residents combating for Ukraine, the 2 episodes have collectively attracted greater than 2 million views since March. Worldwide media pursued related tales within the weeks that adopted. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated no less than 155 Chinese language residents are combating for Russia within the struggle. It is unclear what number of are serving to the Ukrainian facet.

A video display exhibits scenes from the film Wolf Warrior 2 outdoors a theater in Beijing on Aug. 21, 2017. A Chinese language mercenary stranded in japanese Ukraine tells Chai Jing that many Chinese language who take part in Russia’s facet of the battle are influenced by nationalistic motion dramas equivalent to Wolf Warrior.

Greg Baker/AFP through Getty Pictures

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Greg Baker/AFP through Getty Pictures

Chai is China’s Lesley Stahl 

For a lot of viewers from China, 49-year-old Chai was on the pinnacle of tv information. Media specialists examine her to Lesley Stahl, and a 2012 memoir she revealed has continued to encourage younger journalists. In 2015, her self-funded documentary, Below the Dome, was broadly credited for elevating consciousness about air air pollution in China. Its viewership reached 300 million earlier than censors took it down inside per week amid rebukes towards Chai, primarily from defenders of China’s coal-driven progress mannequin.

Not lengthy after the backlash, Chai left Beijing and moved to Barcelona, Spain, the place she led a low-key life together with her household. It wasn’t till 2023 that she resurfaced on YouTube, first with a six-part documentary on terrorism, adopted by a biweekly present. Inside lower than two years, Chai has garnered greater than 850,000 subscribers to her channel, regardless of YouTube being blocked in China, accessible solely by utilizing a digital personal community (VPN). The viewers dimension is a tiny fraction of what she as soon as commanded at China Central Tv (CCTV). But already, her program has change into one of the crucial well-liked abroad Chinese language-language information productions.

A lot of Chai’s present delves deep into China’s current historical past, that includes a string of company whom state broadcasters would have discovered too controversial to air. Amongst her interviewees have been the daughter of Mao Zedong’s secretary, who’s in a authorized dispute with the authorities; a witness who survived the horror of the Cultural Revolution; and writers entangled with the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Sq. crackdown.

“Most of the time, I’m just finishing up the work that got cut off [at CCTV],” she tells NPR.

However the historical past she picks up additionally resonates with at the moment’s political panorama in China. In a single current episode, Chai revisits the infamous mafia crackdown in China’s southwestern Chongqing municipality that started in 2009. The marketing campaign in the end led to the downfall of Bo Xilai, as soon as a outstanding contender for the Communist Occasion management. Wrapping up the episode, Chai notes China’s lack of reflection on Bo’s populist mobilization of judicial energy and the injury it continues to inflict on the nation. She factors out to her viewers that the identical mechanism “is still in motion 16 years later.”

Chai is among the rising cohort of intellectuals who’ve began anew overseas

Chai’s present places her amongst a rising cohort of public intellectuals who’ve left China lately. A lot of them have currently change into extra outspoken on public affairs because the house for impartial voices at house wanes. A number of of them, like Chai, constructed their unique careers in legacy media however now have discovered a brand new presence on YouTube.

A few of them supply virtually every day information updates. Others present criticism that brazenly references chief Xi Jinping. Their arrival has broadly elevated the standard of Chinese language-language information content material on YouTube, which has lengthy been awash with political rumour and armchair evaluation, media specialists say.

Chai’s present, in distinction, options heart-wrenching interviews mixed with meticulous analysis, sprinkled all through with incisive but measured feedback from her.

“She’s added a personal touch to professional journalism,” says Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor on the Chinese language College of Hong Kong. “Finally there’s a high-caliber news program on YouTube for audiences from China.”

Chai’s interviews seem to ring a bell again house, whilst well-liked platforms have deleted movies repackaging her present. Shortly after she posted her interview with Makalong, the Chinese language man within the Russian power, customers on well-liked social media app RedNote found an account that Makalong had created. They posted feedback wishing for his secure return and stated they discovered him by means of Chai’s YouTube present.

Chai’s return coincides with rising restrictions in China

Chai’s followers word that her present is a throwback to an period that has largely evaporated since Xi took energy in 2012. For a few years within the early 2000s, Chinese language public intellectuals loved leeway without spending a dime expression regardless of formal controls. State media reporters like Chai discovered house to do muckraking journalism. For her, that ended when she left the nation eight years in the past for Spain.

Then, one other transfer by China’s more and more paranoid censors prompted Chai’s return to journalism.

On the finish of 2023, a string of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one in all China’s most revered information shops, vanished from its web site. They included articles honoring former Premier Li Keqiang, AIDS epidemic whistleblower Dr. Gao Yaojie and different outstanding figures who had handed away that 12 months. Chai tells NPR that she felt compelled to behave.

Former Premier Li Keqiang (middle) died in 2023. On the finish of that 12 months, a sequence of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one in all China’s most revered information shops, disappeared from its web site. They included articles honoring Li and different figures who had handed away that 12 months.

Noel Celis/AFP through Getty Pictures

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Noel Celis/AFP through Getty Pictures

Former Premier Li Keqiang (middle) died in 2023. On the finish of that 12 months, a sequence of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one in all China’s most revered information shops, disappeared from its web site. They included articles honoring Li and different figures who had handed away that 12 months.

Noel Celis/AFP through Getty Pictures

“How come we aren’t even allowed to say goodbye?!” she remembers considering. “I’ll bid my own farewells.”

Inside days, she created a 24-minute memorial episode on Gao that shortly reached over half 1,000,000 views. With extra tributes that she added within the subsequent few weeks, a brand new program began to take form. She says she did the present largely on her personal, together with studying to edit movies for the primary time.

For extra sophisticated material, she went an additional mile to search for contacts and search corroboration, she says. For the episodes on the Russia-Ukraine struggle, for instance, she interviewed 5 different troopers to nail down the coordinates of a Chinese language man who died combating for Ukraine. Considered one of her sources, an ethnic Chinese language man who calls himself Atticus, says Chai generally contacted him nicely previous midnight, fact-checking particulars.

“It is more demanding than a full-time job,” Chai tells NPR. “I need to try and relive what those people have gone through.”