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Jennifer Pak

China Correspondent

SHORT BIO

Jennifer is Marketplace’s China correspondent, based in Shanghai. She tells stories about the world’s second-biggest economy and why Americans should care about it.

She arrived in Beijing in 2006 with few journalism contacts but quickly set up her own news bureau. Her work has appeared in many news outlets, including the BBC, NPR and The Financial Times. After covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jennifer moved to Kuala Lumpur to be the BBC’s Malaysia correspondent. She reported on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and Edward Snowden’s brief escape to Hong Kong. Jennifer returned to China in 2015, based in the high-tech hub of Shenzhen, before joining Marketplace two years later.

In 2022, Jennifer, along with 25 million Shanghai residents, was locked down for over 60 days and had to scramble for food. The coverage of the pandemic she and her team produced helped earn them a Gracie and a National Headliner Award in 2023. You can see the food Jennifer was able to get during the Shanghai lockdown here and keep up with her tasty finds across China on Instagram at @jpakradio.

Episodes by Jennifer (3)

Marketplace Tech

Why deepfakes of foreigners are selling goods on Chinese social media

May 14, 2024
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Marketplace Tech

Why there's no TikTok in China

Apr 3, 2024
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Make Me Smart | Episode 239

U.S.-China relations are bad, but are they 'new Cold War' bad?

Jul 21, 2020
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Latest Stories (225)

Is GDP still a useful gauge of China's economy?

by Jennifer Pak
Jul 17, 2023
There is a longstanding debate about whether the data is accurate. Some are skeptical of government officials' projections of 5% growth.
Crowds at Chengdu city's Taikoo Li commercial district. Chinese shoppers are consuming more, but not enough to offset weakness in the real estate sector and boost the sluggish economy. (Jennifer Pak/Marketplace)
Jennifer Pak/Marketplace
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A look at China's economic change from Beijing's Sanlitun neighborhood

by Kai Ryssdal , Jennifer Pak and Andie Corban
Jul 10, 2023
"Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal and Shanghai correspondent Jennifer Pak walk around Sanlitun, where Ryssdal lived in the 1990s.
Jennifer Pak and Kai Ryssdal walk in Beijing's Sanlitun neighborhood. IIn the 1990s, the area was made up of old apartment buildings, vegetable stands and small bars catering to Westerners. Now there are luxury retail stores like Chanel and Dior.
Charles Zhang for Marketplace
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What it takes to lure IT workers back to the Chinese countryside

by Jennifer Pak
Jun 26, 2023
Some city-dwellers are heeding the call of China’s government for people to return and revive the countryside.
Ex-coder Hu Hang stands in a peach orchard he co-invests in. He quit the IT sector and moved from Shenzhen back to his hometown in central Jiangxi province a few years ago. (Christian Petersen-Clausen/Marketplace)
Christian Petersen-Clausen for Marketplace
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Fading job prospects discourage younger Chinese workers

by Jennifer Pak
May 17, 2023
China's job market remains competitive as the economy recovers from zero-COVID. But some young people have lost their eagerness to compete.
Students at a job fair in Beijing last year. Unemployment among graduates has remained stubbornly high even though China has dismantled its zero-COVID policy.
Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images
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Why global investors ask: Where's Jack Ma?

by Jennifer Pak
Apr 24, 2023
For over two years, the whereabouts of one of China’s leading tech moguls has generated intense interest from the media and global investors. But is it warranted?
Jack Ma at a startup fair in Paris in 2019. Since China's crackdown on tech moguls in 2020, Ma has largely kept a low profile.
Phillipe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images
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Why more workers in China are ruling out factory jobs

by Jennifer Pak
Apr 17, 2023
Despite high unemployment among young people, most factories are short of workers. It might reflect false promises and poor conditions.
Production in progress at a factory in China's eastern Anhui province. Factory work has lost much of its popularity as a career choice. “The workers just don't trust factory owners,” one former employee said.
STR/AFP via Getty Images
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COVID-19

Shanghai lockdown a year on: Is it still the same financial hub?

by Jennifer Pak
Mar 27, 2023
Shanghai's 2022 lockdown, which lasted two months, left economic and psychological scars on the metropolis.
A view of Lujiazui, the financial district of Shanghai. Government media refers to the cluster of high-rises as the Manhattan of the East.
Jennifer Pak/Marketplace
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Why are women in China not having more babies?

by Jennifer Pak
Mar 17, 2023
In China, each woman went from having about three children in the late 1970s to now one. Decades later, the Chinese government wants women to have three children again but is meeting resistance.
A woman holding a baby girl lines up for a PCR COVID test in Shanghai in 2022. Birth rates continued to fall during China's strict zero-COVID policy during the pandemic.
Charles Zhang/Marketplace
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In China's most locked-down city, business can resume but recovery is a long way off

by Jennifer Pak
Feb 21, 2023
The Chinese city of Ruili, on the border with Myanmar, has had more lockdowns than almost any other place in China.
A jade seller and two women stare at their cellphones in Ruili. Vendors are trickling back to the Jiegao jade market, but customers are few and far between.
Charles Zhang/Marketplace
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COVID-19

China's big question after ending "zero-COVID" rules: How many have died?

by Jennifer Pak
Feb 7, 2023
David struggled to help his 83-year-old father before he died of COVID. Will his father's death be counted in China's official toll?
Hundreds of millions of people in China were infected within weeks of the abrupt end to "zero-COVID" rules, experts say. Above, patients are cared for by relatives and medical staff in the atrium of a busy hospital on Jan. 13 in Shanghai.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
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