Chinese eco-warrior reporter Chai Jing back in the censorship spotlight with terrorism series
- Chai ignited public discussion about air pollution in 2015 with a documentary that fell foul of censors
- A trailer about her new series on jihadists has also been removed from online platforms
Chai Jing, who became a household name in China as a reporter for state broadcaster CCTV before financing her own productions, announced her return to journalism by releasing a trailer for the series Stranger – Talking to Jihadists on various Chinese social media platforms on Sunday.
The six-part series on the origins of terrorism will be released on Thursday.
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In the article, Chai said she moved to Barcelona, Spain in 2017 but did not say why she had kept a low profile since 2015.
The article pointed to a personal channel on YouTube, a service that is blocked in mainland China.
Chai, 47, is one of a number of Chinese journalists who left behind the constrained news system at home to pursue a career abroad. Wang Zhian, another former CCTV journalist, started his own YouTube channel after moving to Japan in 2020.
It was released in the lead-up to annual national legislature meetings in March and had more than 200 million views in two days, helped in part by official media outlets, including People’s Daily.
Chen Jining, the environmental protection minister at the time, reportedly sent Chai a text message to thank her for focusing attention on environmental problems.
The documentary generated widespread public debate before it was taken down by censors without explanation.
There was also no indication of how it managed to slip through China’s strictly censored internet regime to be released in the first place.
Chai had not been seen publicly since.
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Chai was a reporter and presenter for state broadcaster CCTV from 2001 to 2013, where she made a name through investigative reports, particularly during the Sars epidemic in 2003 and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.
News site Sina News reported in 2014 that Chai left CCTV that year.
Her bestselling memoir Seeing, first published in China in 2012, will be released in English next week by New York-based Astra Publishing House.
Chai’s reappearance sparked widespread discussion on social media.
“It is inspiring to see Chai drifting for years but still working,” one commenter wrote in a post that was reposted by more than 4,000 people before being taken down.
Additional reporting by Echo Xie
