Anthony Kuhn
Anthony Kuhn is NPR's correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea, reporting on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the great diversity of Asia's countries and cultures. Before moving to Seoul in 2018, he traveled to the region to cover major stories including the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster.
Kuhn previously served two five-year stints in Beijing, China, for NPR, during which he covered major stories such as the Beijing Olympics, geopolitical jousting in the South China Sea, and the lives of Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities in China's borderlands.
He took a particular interest in China's rich traditional culture and its impact on the current day. He has recorded the sonic calling cards of itinerant merchants in Beijing's back alleys, and the descendants of court musicians of the Tang Dynasty. He has profiled petitioners and rights lawyers struggling for justice, and educational reformers striving to change the way Chinese think.
From 2010-2013, Kuhn was NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Among other stories, he explored Borneo and Sumatra, and witnessed the fight to preserve the biodiversity of the world's oldest forests. He also followed Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, as she rose from political prisoner to head of state.
Kuhn served as NPR's correspondent in London from 2004-2005, covering stories including the London subway bombings and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall.
Besides his major postings, Kuhn's journalistic horizons have been expanded by various short-term assignments. These produced stories including wartime black humor in Iraq, musical diplomacy by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang, North Korea, a kerfuffle over the plumbing in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Pakistani artists' struggle with religious extremism in Lahore, and the Syrian civil war's spillover into neighboring Lebanon.
Prior to joining NPR, Kuhn wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review and freelanced for various news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. He majored in French literature as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, and later did graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American studies in Nanjing.
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The nation's younger voters may decide whether the world's third-largest democracy maintains economic growth and political reform or slides backward to the authoritarian politics of a generation ago.
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Residents of a South Korean island attacked by North Korea in 2010 fear it could become a flashpoint again. They hid in air raid shelters in early January after North Korea conducted artillery drills. -
Some Japanese are trying to reinvigorate their country's most aged village — where two-thirds of residents are over 65. -
Middle- and upper-class Chinese are joining a migration wave to Japan. -
Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party replaced two of its top executives as part of a purge related to investigations into alleged political slush funds. -
The decision to release the movie profiling the American scientist follows criticism that the film largely ignored the impact of the bombings that killed more than 200,000 people in Japan. -
Since the collapse of nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington in 2019, analysts see a major shift in North Korea's foreign relations. It has turned increasingly to Moscow. -
Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported that rescuers found three people near the crash site, but their condition is unknown. -
The court ruled unanimously that compulsory sterilization surgery for people who seek to legally change their gender is unconstitutional. -
Japan's government has asked a court to remove the legal standing and tax breaks of the Unification Church, which was tied to the shocking assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year.
