The former US correspondent began reporting from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia in 1993. In 2011, he received the Liberty Award from the German Reemtsma Foundation for his journalistic work. After serving as regional head for East Asia from 2013, he took responsibility for the entire Asia-Pacific region in 2019. From 2023 to 2024, he joined the political desk in the newsroom in Berlin before leaving dpa after 40 years. He currently works as a China expert, a keynote speaker and an author for Table.Briefings and others.
His first encounter with China was during his studies in Taipei (1980–1982), when he also traveled extensively in mainland China. After graduating from Bonn University, he joined dpa in 1984 in Düsseldorf. At dpa headquarters, he worked as a copy editor at the foreign desk and then at the domestic desk during German unification in 1989. As a Washington correspondent from 1990, he specialized in defense policy, covering the Gulf War for the liberation of Kuwait in 1990 and Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.
In 1993, he moved to China with his wife and three children to become Beijing Bureau Chief. Since then, he has witnessed China's rise to become the world's second-largest economy. He covered Deng Xiaoping's death, the return of Hong Kong and Macao, China's accession to the WTO, the first outbreak of SARS, the 2008 Olympic Games, Xi Jinping's rise to power since 2012, and the Covid-19 pandemic. He has interviewed various Chinese leaders such as Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji, and Wen Jiabao. Since 2001, he has also traveled to North Korea several times.
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