2023 Asian Journalism Forum｜Speakers

Senior reporter at Sanlih TV’“The Borderless World” Host of defense news related podcast “Talks on Fire.”Covered major international and local historic events such as Trump-Kim Summit, Moon-Kim Summit, Ma-Xi Meeting, RIMPAC, among others. Visited Ukraine to cover Russian invasion in 2022. Recipient of Excellent Journalism Award on international news category in 2020.

Chenlung Kuo

Deputy Editor-in-Chief, United Daily News

Chenlung Kuo is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief in United Daily News. He is a podcast host of his own show and an associate professor at the National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Journalism.

He previously also hosted a TV Interview program, “Global Perspective” on current international situation at UDN TV.

Before he worked in the United Daily News, he worked in China Times as the correspondent in New York. He also worked in China Times as executive deputy-in-chief for international and cross-strait news and chief commentator in Business Weekly.

Joyu Wang is a Taipei-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering Taiwan politics and general news, with a focus on defense and security issues.

She was previously Asia’s social media editor for the Journal in Hong Kong, where her work earned several journalism awards, including a Scripps Howard Award for digital innovation and a Human Rights Press Award for her reporting on the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

Joyu graduated from the University of Missouri with a dual degree in journalism and linguistics, and began her career as an intern in the Journal’s Hong Kong bureau.

Adrien Simorre is a french journalist based in Taipei since 2019, where he works as a correspondant for various french-speaking medias, including newspaper “Libération” and “Radio France”.

Ron Lopez is the Philippine correspondent for the global news service Agence France-Presse or AFP News Agency, covering disasters, politics, and geopolitical tensions between the Philippines, China, and the United States.

 Ron has reported on the frontline about Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea, talking to fishermen affected by the presence of Chinese militia in the Scarborough shoal and experiencing first hand the radio warnings from a Chinese Coast Guard ship while aboard a Philippine Coast Guard plane flying over the Spratly Islands.

 He has covered several military exercises between the US and the Philippines and how the change in Philippine leadership brought a new dimension to the US-Philippines-China relations.

Thompson Chau is a journalist covering news in Taiwan and Myanmar. He is Frontier Myanmar’s corporate director and editor-at-large, and also regularly writes for Nikkei Asia and the Economist. After more than five years reporting in Yangon, he relocated in early 2022 and now spends his time in Taipei, Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

In April 2023, Thompson was elected President of the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club (TFCC). He is co-recipient of the 2021 Vivian Wu award, and has written for the Financial Times, Al Jazeera, the Telegraph and other international outlets. Previously, he was chief reporter and associate editor of Myanmar Times.

Outside journalism, Thompson used to serve as a board director of a foreign chamber of commerce in Myanmar and was a member of the British Club in Yangon. He has an M.A. from the University of St Andrews.

Uni has spent almost 32 years as a journalist, leading  print and broadcast newsrooms, covering various issues and international events. These include Climate Conferences, APEC, G20, UN-GA, member of Interfaith and Intermedia Dialogue delegates from Indonesia. She also regularly teaches in Indonesia Journalism  School which was founded by Indonesia Journalist  Association (PWI), since 2011. She also lectures in journalism workshops in the ASEAN region. She was previously in charge of Rappler  Indonesia as Managing Director from 2013. She left in December 2017 to join IDN Times which targets millennials and Gen Zs, as Editor-in-Chief. She is the Chair of Indonesia Forum of Women Journalist since November 2018.

Sohn Suk Hee began his career in1984 with MBC, South Korea’s public broadcasting corporation.

He anchored the main evening news and was the host of many other current affairs programs.  In particular, his “Sohn Suk Hee’s Focus” and “100 Minute Debate” were evaluated as opening a new chapter in Korean broadcast journalism. 

He was an anchor, but he was also one of the leaders of the union. In 1992 he was one of the leaders of a strike calling for fair broadcasting, for which he was arrested.

In 2006, he moved to Sungshin Women’s University as a professor to teach students, and in 2013 he moved to JTBC, a commercial broadcasting company, where he returned to broadcasting. He led the main evening news, “JTBC Newsroom,” and was the first to report on the Park Geun Hye scandal.  This report eventually led to Park’s impeachment.  He also reported the first Me-Too confession, sparking the Me-Too movement in South Korea.  As a result, JTBC News, which he led, had its heyday.

He later served as CEO of JTBC and is now back in broadcasting to work as a correspondent in Japan.  Last year, he interviewed the former President Moon Jae In for two days to attract attention, and recently produced and broadcast a three-part documentary, “Three Wars.”

His book is “Song of the Grass Lark” (published in Taiwan), “The Scenes” (currently being prepared for publication in Taiwan), and “Anchor Briefing.”  He is considered the most trusted journalist in South Korea.

Chief business news correspondent for Nikkei Asia and a main contributor to #techAsia, a weekly email newsletter combing selected reporting on Asian tech from Nikkei and Financial Times.

For over the past 30 years, he has been reporting and editing for Nikkei in Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok, mainly covering corporate and financial news with strong regional interest in greater China. He has been posted to Hong Kong for his third time since 2020.

Being born and raised in Nagoya, Japan, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College in Vermont, U.S.A. in 1992. He has studied in mainland China twice, first time in 1991 at Liaoning Normal University in Dalian and second time in 2002~2003 at two universities in Tianjin, being dispatched by Nikkei.

Shirley Ka Lai Leung is Photon’s Editor-in-Chief

She was a former Apple Daily reporter based in Hong Kong and is currently the Asia Media Fellow of the Asian Studies Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

She is an independent journalist from Hong Kong and has been working in several magazines and newspapers for 17 years, covering social and cultural features. During the 2019 social movement in Hong Kong, she worked as a senior reporter in Apple Daily and witnessed the closure of the company after the enactment of the National Security Law.

She later moved to Taiwan to launch the Chinese-language online Photon Media.

She has received her M.A. in Literary and Cultural Studies in The University of Hong Kong, with her research focusing on Hong Kong literature. Her publications include 因自由之名 (In the Name of Freedom) which co-authored with other journalists about the 2019 social movement, and 榮光歲月 (Glory of Our Times) published by Apple Daily.

Li Yuan writes the New New World column for The New York Times, which focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia.

A veteran journalist who started her career at a Chinese state news agency, where she covered Afghanistan and Southeast Asia as a foreign correspondent, Yuan later joined the Wall Street Journal as a technology reporter and editor of its Chinese-language website.

She now writes a column on China for the New York Times and runs the Chinese-language podcast “I Don’t Understand” (不明白播客).

Yuan is a graduate of Columbia University and George Washington University. She grew up in China’s northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. She worked for the Xinhua News Agency in Beijing, Bangkok and Kabul, Afghanistan, as an editor and a foreign correspondent. Yuan is the winner of the Flora Lewis Award for best commentary in any medium on international news for her work covering Hong Kong and China. She also previously won Best in Business awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, in in commentary and opinion category.