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Hu Shuli
Editor-in-Chief, Caixin Media

Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Chinese investigative journalist Hu Shuli during awarding ceremonies at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in suburban Pasay, Philippines on Sunday Aug. 31, 2014.
Aaron Favila—AP
Hu is a paragon of important journalism inside China’s notoriously close-fisted media environment. As a young reporter, she was suspended from her paper after asking it to cover the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Undeterred, Hu started the business paper Caijing and exposed everything from stock-market manipulation to a state cover-up of the SARS outbreak. Hu’s current home, the media company Caixin, retains her penchant for provocation; last year she issued an extraordinary call against state censorship.