Why China is important to WSJ’s coverage

John Corrigan, the China business editor of The Wall Street Journal, writes for the Loyola Marymount University alumni magazine about why the business newspaper pays so much attention to China.

Corrigan writes, “So why China? There is so much here that Americans should know about. I guide the Journal’s business and technology coverage in China, and it often seems as if I have stepped five years into the future.

“Everyone does everything via smartphone, from paying a restaurant tab to taking out a college loan. China is also at the cutting edge of surveillance technology, as we chronicled in a recent Page One story on facial recognition. This technology is emerging globally, but nowhere more profoundly than in China, where authorities are using facial recognition on public streets and in subway stations, at airports and at border crossings. More significantly, China stands out by harnessing facial recognition technology to influence social behavior — such as setting up cameras at crosswalks to identify and publicly shame people crossing against a red light. Who knows how things might evolve from there.

“As with any assignment, there are drawbacks: distance from family and friends, and those cold, polluted days of winter. But few stories can beat China at this point in history.”

Read more here.