Peiyue Wu is an award-winning journalist based in New York City. She writes about China’s technology and business, with a keen interest in how they are reshaping labor relations, social norms, and the humanities. Her work has been published by Sixth Tone and Rest of World.
Her journey into journalism ignited when she returned to China from the U.S. in 2020. She was struck by the sweeping changes tech companies and digital platforms were bringing to people’s daily lives and the cityscapes. These changes possessed a surreal aesthetic appeal to her, yet being amidst them also evoked an unprecedented feeling of oppression. Shocked, but more so curious, she fervently endeavored to comprehend the shift China was undergoing.
Her debut in investigative reporting “China’s African Traders Confront a Formidable New Foe: Alibaba,” garnered immense international attention and earned her a place among the finalists for the prestigious SOPA (Society of Publishers in Asia) Awards in 2021.
A year later, she became the first to identify actual factories supplying the fast fashion giant Shein, and exposed worrying labor and fire safety practices. Her investigation “The Shady Labor Practice Underpinning Shein’s Global Fashion Empire” got nominated for SOPA’s Excellence in Business Reporting Category for the two years in a row.
In 2023, she clinched two SOPA awards — Excellence in Business Reporting and Excellence in Explanatory Reporting — with “Code Red: The Human Cost of China’s Rural Banking Crisis,” and “‘We Own It’: The Chinese Homeowners Squatting in Unfinished Buildings.”
Most recently, her collaborative reporting with Rest of World on the series titled “China, the World’s Shopping Cart” won 2023 Best in Business Awards (SABEW) in the retail category.
She received a Master’s degree in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts (New York University) in 2019, specializing in Asian Art. Before, she had her Bachelor’s degree in Hong Kong, focusing on studio art. Her art reviews have appeared on various magazines and peer-reviewed academic journals such as Journal of Curatorial Studies.