Anthony Kuhn
Anthony Kuhn is NPR's correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea, reporting on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the great diversity of Asia's countries and cultures. Before moving to Seoul in 2018, he traveled to the region to cover major stories including the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster.
Kuhn previously served two five-year stints in Beijing, China, for NPR, during which he covered major stories such as the Beijing Olympics, geopolitical jousting in the South China Sea, and the lives of Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities in China's borderlands.
He took a particular interest in China's rich traditional culture and its impact on the current day. He has recorded the sonic calling cards of itinerant merchants in Beijing's back alleys, and the descendants of court musicians of the Tang Dynasty. He has profiled petitioners and rights lawyers struggling for justice, and educational reformers striving to change the way Chinese think.
From 2010-2013, Kuhn was NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among other stories, he explored Borneo and Sumatra, and witnessed the fight to preserve the biodiversity of the world's oldest forests. He also followed Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, as she rose from political prisoner to head of state.
Kuhn served as NPR's correspondent in London from 2004-2005, covering stories including the London subway bombings and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall.
Besides his major postings, Kuhn's journalistic horizons have been expanded by various short-term assignments. These produced stories including wartime black humor in Iraq, musical diplomacy by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, North Korea, a kerfuffle over the plumbing in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Pakistani artists' struggle with religious extremism in Lahore, and the Syrian civil war's spillover into neighboring Lebanon.
Prior to joining NPR, Kuhn wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review and freelanced for various news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. He majored in French literature as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, and later did graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American studies in Nanjing.
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The two Koreas have taken another remarkable step toward linking up — by train. -
China is extending its reach into emigre communities overseas in remarkable ways. Harnessing their energy, know-how and capital is one more facet of President Xi Jinping's "Chinese dream." -
The visit to Beijing was Kim Jong Un's first foreign trip since taking power in 2011, and it follows North Korea's recent agreement to hold talks with the leaders of South Korea and the United States. -
A new poll shows Americans are pessimistic about repealing the Affordable Care Act. Ingo Zamperoni of ARD news discusses U.S.-German relations. And a labor activist in China has gone missing.
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Women call the shots among the Mosuo people of southwest China. However, things are changing. Tourism has helped them escape poverty but also has eroded traditional family structures. -
To get to school, the children must trek as many as four hours up and down a 2,600-foot mountainside, relying on rickety ladders. Their families see their education as a way out of poverty. -
Ahead of a Hague ruling in a dispute between the Philippines and China over the South China Sea, a Hainan town's residents insist history is on their side. China says it will ignore any ruling. -
A college student accused China's largest search engine, Baidu, of misleading him to a fraudulent cancer treatment. He died in April. -
Some parents fear the vaccines put their children at risk. And now there's a scandal to boot: A nationwide criminal ring allegedly resold millions of vaccines that hadn't been properly stored. -
A third of the 12,000-mile-long Great Wall of China lies in ruins. Its modern-day defenders confront what may be the world's greatest challenge in cultural preservation.
