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Eliot Chen

Staff Writer

eliot@thewire.media

Articles

Fishy Business

A look at the fight against illicit seafood: China’s role in it, the companies involved, and why the U.S. is cracking down on the practice now.

Money Makers

A look at wealth in China: its magnitude, how it’s being spent and invested, and the yawning inequality gap that has only grown in the Xi era. 

China’s Under-Used Grid

A look at China’s electricity grid: how it works, who foots the bill, and how its structure leads to power crunches and expensive prices despite the relative abundance of energy in China. 

Reining in Pony.ai?

A look at the self-driving car startup’s emergence and warm welcome in China, and the challenges it faces amid U.S.-China technological decoupling. 

Xi Jinping By the Numbers

Ten years after Xi Jinping ascended to China’s top leadership position, the Chinese Communist Party is a party remade. More than at any point in the post-Mao period, it is an organization constructed around personalistic rule, with power consolidated in the hands of a single...