Emily Feng
@emilyzfeng.bsky.social
NPR White House correspondent. 10 years in China and Taiwan. Author of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom (Crown 2025) and forthcoming book on Syria (CGR 2026) https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/our-hearts-burned-for-home
Next week in DC, join us for a conversation about OUR HEARTS BURNED FOR HOME with author @emilyzfeng.bsky.social and @financialtimes.com U.S.-Mideast Foreign Affairs Correspondent Abigail Hauslohner 🗓️ Friday 10/16 at Politics and Prose learn more--> politics-prose.com/emily-feng-1...
You can read an excerpt of the forthcoming Our Hearts Burned For Home, in the China Books Review. "All they had known in Syria was war. War had given them a purpose. Now that war was over. What were they to do next?" chinabooksreview.com/2026/10/08/u...
Fighting for Home | China Books Review
After 14 years of war in Syria, Damascus fell to the rebels in December 2024. Fighting with them was a small but critical cohort of Uyghurs, who had fled China and joined the battle. But once the war ...
chinabooksreview.com
The Embedded podcast series featuring this reporting and more on the case of Austin Tice is worth a listen
NPR@npr.org · 4d agoA former Syrian general wanted for crimes against humanity is living quietly in Lebanon, bankrolled and protected by American and Lebanese authorities, a BBC/NPR investigation has found. n.pr/4y6qvGU
I went in BBC @newshour.bsky.social to talk about our new book, Our Hearts Burned For Home, on Uyghur fighters in Syria, hitting shelves October 13 (at the 40 min mark) urldefense.com/v3/__https:/...
Newshour - Tens of thousands protest housing crisis in Spain - BBC Sounds
The Spanish parliament yesterday rejected the government's proposals to protect tenants.
urldefense.com
"The staffing shortages are so significant that in many of the FBI's 56 field offices, counterintelligence squads only have 50% to 60% of positions filled. In multiple field offices, the number of squads doing such work has been reduced by half." www.npr.org/2026/10/06/g...
As Trump focuses the FBI on immigration, counterintelligence is falling behind
The cuts come as a consequence of President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel's focus on violent crime and immigration, leaving other priorities understaffed.
npr.org
That's the exact same etymology as "artificial", from "ars" (craftsmanship) + "facere" (to bring about)
“In Chinese, the word for “artificial” is formed by combining the characters for “person” (ren) and “work” (gong), emphasizing something made by human effort rather than set in opposition to nature.” www.theideasletter.org/essay/shooti...
Shooting the Suns
Bequelin situates China’s approach to artificial intelligence within the country’s longer trajectory of treating science as a primary engine of development and state-building. That history has produce...
theideasletter.org
Just tried this, indeed this is what happens. Some of the lines the model starts hallucinating are quite beautiful. Some are very strange.
404 Media@404media.co · 2w agoSo Trump's new AI chatbot? Creepy. @jasonkoebler.bsky.social saw this on Bluesky and gave the prompt "play minecraft" a test. This is what happened:
Evan Gershkovish speaking on always being a journalist, even under detention, and grappling with coming back to "normal" life after imprisonment. www.npr.org/2026/09/29/n...
Journalist recounts his Russian imprisonment on false espionage charges in new memoir
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich about his memoir, "This Cursed Beautiful Land," on his imprisonment in Russia on false espionage charges.
npr.org
Potential Taiwan tension sparked a "last-minute" change in the Trump-Xi visit to the National Archives in Washington — @emilyzfeng.bsky.social reports www.npr.org/2026/09/29/n...
Potential Taiwan tension sparked 'last minute' change in Trump-Xi National Archives visit
The sudden change was precipitated because of Chinese displeasure over one document that the U.S. had planned to show.
npr.org
1/ New from me: Chinese diplomats scrambled up to 90 min before the Xi/Trump visit to the National Archives to stop a Taiwan-related treaty from being shown. ..."an indication of pushback from within the U.S. government against President Trump's warm reception of Xi.." www.npr.org/2026/09/29/n...
Potential Taiwan tension sparked 'last minute' change in Trump-Xi National Archives visit
The sudden change was precipitated because of Chinese displeasure over one document that the U.S. had planned to show.
npr.org
"He wonders if shamans in Liangzhu, many thousands of years ago, were doing something similar to what he is doing now—whether their ancient star maps were a way of saying that the world, however chaotic and confusing, contained a pattern that humans could predict." www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
What China’s Vibe-Coding Capital Can Tell Us About the A.I. Boom
Liangzhu, a small town near the tech hub Hangzhou, has become a haven for tech workers burnt out by the grind of China’s booming tech industry.
newyorker.com
"Being first, Ding argued, was a poor predictor of who wins." www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
There Is No A.I. “Race”
We’re constantly told that Chinese advances in A.I. would have catastrophic consequences. But the first to innovate is rarely the one who wins.
newyorker.com
Trump wrote on Truth Social suggesting today's meetings with Xi will NOT result in joint guidance on artificial intelligence. Notable to me that Xi Jinping, in his opening remarks, stressed AI should ultimately remain "under human control". us.china-embassy.gov.cn/zgyw/202609/...
习近平在白宫欢迎仪式上的致辞（全文）_中华人民共和国驻美利坚合众国大使馆
us.china-embassy.gov.cn
Pro-Chinese Communist Party welcoming group waiting for Xi Jinping’s motorcade to pass on the way to the White House. Some Chinese embassy staff also here, helping to organize “areas of responsibility” and hats
Treasury just announced a two-month extension, far shorter than what China proposed. Speaks to the daylight between the U.S. and China but also the desire to make Xi's visit tomorrow as smooth as possible. www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
U.S. and China agree to extend trade truce through January 10, Bessent says
The extension of an agreement to suspend some tariffs comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a state visit.
nbcnews.com
Emily Feng@emilyzfeng.bsky.social · 4w ago1/ Scoop - Before Trump's visit to Beijing this past May, Chinese officials offered to extend the rare earths moratorium to the end of Trump's term, in January 2029. The U.S. rejected the offer, requesting a six-month extension only. www.npr.org/2026/09/17/n...
"The Trump Administration has let the fox in the henhouse. " Statement from the US-Taiwan Business Council (whose members include a lot of American arms makers) www.us-taiwan.org/resources/th...
Taiwan Arms Sales Freeze
USTBC President Rupert Hammond-Chambers asks why President Trump has initiated an ongoing Taiwan arms sale freeze, delaying Taiwan's force modernization. %
us-taiwan.org
Very interesting interview with US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz on @npr.org today on the three hour talks with Iran yesterday www.npr.org/2026/09/23/n...
U.S. ambassador to the U.N. discusses Trump's address at UNGA
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz about President Trump's trip to the U.N. General Assembly and whether progress has been made on key issues.
npr.org
A forward-planning note we discuss in the podcast: if Xi Jinping’s visit in Washington goes well this week, Trump is almost certainly going to APEC in Shenzhen after the midterms. Russia’s Putin will attend too. www.npr.org/2026/09/21/n...
Trump takes the world stage : The NPR Politics Podcast
President Trump heads to the United Nations General Assembly this week as the organization welcomes world leaders to discuss their work. We preview what he will discuss, as well as what is on the agen...
npr.org
From my colleague @scottdetrow.bsky.social “We just noted on air that NPR has decided not to use audio from White House events until further notice. We will cover the news but will not use the sound clips.”
NPR@npr.org · 3w agoNPR and our Member stations will continue to uphold First Amendment rights, and to stand with any news organization targeted for its reporting.
Details on Xi's visit. Trump not only will greet Xi on the tarmac but also do a military flyover as part of a welcoming ceremony. Wondering where 'perfect reciprocity' went. (Trump did not get this in Beijing. He got singing children.) www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st...
First Lady Melania Trump Releases Details Ahead of His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of The People’s Republic of China, and Madame Peng Liyuan’s Visit to The White House
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and Madame Peng
whitehouse.gov
“Analysts have long feared that AI could lead to a catastrophic miscalculation if nation states are relying on poor or corrupted data — the kind of miscalculation that might lead the United States to fire on a Chinese ship based on inaccurate info.” www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
cnn.com
Today we tackle the debate raging around frontier AI, whether China can and wants to create humanity destroying AI, and whether regulation really inhibits progress as the Trump admin assumes one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5973...
🔊 Listen Now: With AI, what's more important for the U.S. — winning or safety?
All Things Considered on NPR One | 5:40
one.npr.org
Tracking last pick ups for the audio book version of Our Hearts Burned For Home today globalreports.columbia.edu/books/our-he...
1/ Scoop - Before Trump's visit to Beijing this past May, Chinese officials offered to extend the rare earths moratorium to the end of Trump's term, in January 2029. The U.S. rejected the offer, requesting a six-month extension only. www.npr.org/2026/09/17/n...
Big questions - and key logistical details - loom ahead of China-U.S. summit
Despite the lingering questions, China remains optimistic about the summit.
npr.org
Highlighting this from the Anthropic risk report: "We identified a PRC government-aligned operation that used Claude to track, profile, and recruit Uyghurs and Uyghur armed formations in Syria." These Uyghurs are the focus of my book w/Abduweli Ayup: globalreports.columbia.edu/books/our-he...
Our Hearts Burned for Home | Columbia Global Reports
The untold story of Uyghur exiles who fled China to the front lines of Syria’s civil war
globalreports.columbia.edu
"State banks fed the rush, offering a special category of loans for blueberry growers." www.wsj.com/business/dri...
Driscoll’s Gave China Its Blueberries—Then China Swiped the Secret to Growing Them
The California grower’s expansion into China ignited local competition and widespread intellectual-property theft. Private investigators went undercover at nurseries.
wsj.com
Important point from Chris McGuire in today's UpFirst from @npr.org : "It doesn’t make any sense to say that ww have to move as fast as possible in order to beat China while we are also selling them the tech they need to move faster in AI." www.npr.org/2026/09/15/n...
Trump Downplays AI Risks, SCOTUS Mail-In Voting Ruling, Kennedy Center Bankruptcy : Up First from NPR
President Trump dismissed warnings from leading AI companies that the technology is advancing too fast, calling fears of machines taking over a hoax and framing AI development as a race with China.The...
npr.org
