Muyi Xiao

Muyi Xiao is a reporter covering China on The New York Times’s Visual Investigations team, where she combines traditional reporting with digital sleuthing and analysis of visual evidence. She specializes in using emerging techniques to analyze and find clues in open source material, such as videos and photos, satellite images, flight and ship tracking data, government documents, and corporate records. Muyi covers a wide range of topics regarding China, including tech, geopolitics and security. At The Times, she has led investigations that revealed the inner workings of China’s global propaganda and surveillance systems; pieced together the final days of the doctor who was silenced for sounding an early alarm for Covid-19; mapped out the Chinese networks behind secret oil deliveries to North Korea; and used AI and remote sensing data to track the journey of a Chinese balloon to the United States. She started covering China as a journalist in 2012. She grew up in China and worked there for several years as a reporter, photojournalist and videographer. She covered national breaking news and produced enterprise stories about child marriages, the disappearance of flight MH370, China’s railway project in Africa and more. In 2017, Muyi relocated to New York to work as the Visuals Editor for ChinaFile, an online magazine focused on China published by the Asia Society. She commissioned, edited and produced visual stories for the site. She began working with The Times in late 2019, where she was part of a team that was named a Pulitzer finalist in 2020 for a series of stories that unveiled China’s top-secret efforts to repress millions of Muslims. She also shared a Gerald Loeb Award in 2022 for stories on China’s global propaganda and censorship operation. She has won four Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for China coverage.

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