Willy Wo-Lap Lam (born 1952; ) is a Hong Kong journalist, political scientist, and commentator on Chinese politics. He is currently a

Jamestown Foundation The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, wh ...

fellow and an adjunct professor at the Centre for China Studies,

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...

. He holds a BA from

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hon ...

obtained in 1974, an MA from

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

obtained in 1978 and a PhD in Political Economy from

Wuhan University Wuhan University (WHU; ) is a public research university in Wuhan, Hubei. The university is sponsored by the Ministry of Education. Wuhan university was founded as one of the four elite universities in the early republican period of China and ...

obtained in 2002. Lam worked for the ''

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...

'' until 2000. He was the paper's Beijing correspondent until the

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

, and was China editor during the 1997

handover of Hong Kong Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admin ...

. In 1995, he was described as the "quintessential

China watcher A China watcher, or, less frequently, Pekingologist, is a person who reports on the politics of the People's Republic of China for western consumption, especially in a Cold War context. "China watching" was coined by analogy to birdwatching, which ...

"; CNN called him "one of the most plugged-in observers of Chinese politics in the world" in 1999. Lam was critical of

CCP general secretary The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader ...

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...

at the time, saying that Jiang had "successfully consolidated his power" but "hasn't used that power to accomplish anything significant". He left the paper in December 2000 complaining of editorial censorship. Lam has described the direction of Chinese society under

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, ...

as "the closing of the Chinese mind".

Bibliography

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References

External links

Articles
at

Faculty page
at

Living people 1952 births Hong Kong journalists Chinese sinologists Chinese University of Hong Kong faculty {{HongKong-bio-stub