Times expands Beijing bureau with two new hires

Steven Lee Myers has been appointed Beijing bureau chief for The Times. Myers will be leading and guiding a team of reporters and researchers.

Myers joined The Times 30 years ago as a copy boy. Since then, he has been based on three continents and reported from dozens of countries. His first foreign posting was in Moscow. Steve replaces Jane Perlez, who served as bureau chief with distinction and is now on a fellowship at Harvard.

The next hire is Chris Buckley who will be joining as chief China correspondent, a newly created position that acknowledges Chris’s central role in the Beijing bureau.

Buckley has 20 years of experience reporting about China. Before joining The Times, he worked for Erik Eckholm and Elisabeth Rosenthal covering corruption scandals, political infighting, the SARS crisis and the outbreak of an AIDS epidemic in rural China.

Then, after working for 7 years with Reuters, he returned to The Times in 2012.

“We’re lucky to have both Steve and Chris in Beijing, where it’s getting more and more difficult to do our jobs and keep our people safe,” said Phil Pan, an associate managing editor who knows a thing or two about China. “With their combined experience and judgment leading a big, talented reporting team, The Times is in a better position than any other outlet to tackle the most important stories in China.”