The Wall Street Journal wins Hinrich Foundation trade reporting award
Published 11 May 2022
Winners of the 2021 Hinrich Foundation Award for Distinguished Reporting on Trade formally received the prize at the annual National Press Foundation Awards Dinner in Washington D.C. The winning reporting by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) covered Beijing's use of its power and political leverage to give Chinese companies a permanent advantage in the global marketplace.
Five of the six winning Wall Street Journal reporters accepted the award at the May 4 ceremony, hosted by the National Press Foundation. The winning team is comprised of six WSJ foreign correspondents reporting from Asia and Europe: Valentina Pop (now with the Financial Times), Sha Hua, Stu Woo, Daniel Michaels, Matthew Dalton, and Yang Jie.
The Journal’s coverage showed how China has attempted to use its muscle to reshape the rules of global trade. In one story, Pop, Hua, and Michaels showed how China has attempted to dominate the institutions that define the vital technical and industrial standards for cutting edge technology, from lightbulbs to 5G.
Dalton reported from Paris on how China has provided billions in subsidies to state-owned companies to acquire manufacturing plants in the West — including a French maker of high-speed train wheels — and then slashed prices.
In a third story, Stu Woo in London and Yang Jie in Tokyo chronicled how the United States tried to keep Huawei Technologies Co. from acquiring a Dutch machine it needed to manufacture advanced semiconductors.
National Press Foundation judges praised the high quality of the reporting and analysis that detailed for readers how China’s quest to wrest control over international norms previously controlled by the United States is “setting the stage for skirmishes to come”.
The Hinrich Foundation Award for Distinguished Reporting on Trade was created in 2019 to recognize exemplary journalism that illuminates and advances the public’s understanding of international business and trade. The 2020 winners were David J. Lynch, Carol Leonnig, Josh Dawsey, and Jeff Stein of The Washington Post.
Winners of other NPF awards attending the 2022 ceremony included New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and CBS Evening News Anchor and Managing Editor Norah O’Donnell. The event, attended by hundreds of international journalists as well as policymakers, was the NPF’s first in-person awards ceremony since 2020.
To learn more, visit the Award ceremony page on the National Press Foundation website.
© The Hinrich Foundation. See our website Terms and conditions for our copyright and reprint policy. All statements of fact and the views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author(s).