Emily Feng


Emily Feng is an American journalist and author who focuses on politics and human rights in China and travels frequently to conflicts and hotspots around the world.

Early life and education

Feng was born and raised in Bethany, Connecticut, to Chinese parents. She says she considers herself Chinese and American in identity, "and that connection and those people and that world will always be accessible whether or not I am in China." Feng studied Public Policy and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University and graduated in 2015.

Journalism career

Feng served as an international correspondent for NPR from 2019 to 2024, based in Beijing and Taipei. Her work in Taiwan was among a package awarded a citation from the Overseas Press Club in 2025. Before joining NPR, she was a Beijing correspondent for the Financial Times.
Feng has covered semiconductors, Chinese surveillance of Uyghurs, and the coronavirus epidemic in China. Her work uncovering the contours of Persecution of [Uyghurs in China|China's crackdown in Xinjiang] won a Human Rights Press Award in 2021.
She has also done reporting in conflict zones around the world, including the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. In 2025, she moved to Washington, D.C., for NPR, where she covers foreign policy and U.S.-China relations.
In 2022, Feng received the 2022 Shorenstein Journalism Award for her work in the Asia-Pacific. In 2023, Feng won the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for her reporting on Uyghur families in China.
In 2025, Feng published Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, a book that explores questions of identity in modern China. She said she wrote it because "she wanted to help people feel what it's like to live in their world, because that's what I've lost since leaving China — and, I think, what we've all lost now that there are fewer reporters on the ground in mainland China."

Awards and recognition

Books

  • ''Let Only Red Flowers Bloom''