Kristin Shi-Kupfer

 Kristin Shi-Kupfer heads MERICS’ research area on Public Policy and Society. She is an expert on China’s digital politics, ideology, media policy, civil society and human rights. She earned her PhD from Ruhr University Bochum with a thesis on spiritual and religious groups in China after 1978. From 2007 to 2011 she was the China correspondent for the Austrian news magazine Profil, the German Protestant Press Agency epd, and Südwest Presse in Beijing. She also worked as a freelance contributor for other media like ZEIT Online, tageszeitung (taz), and Deutsche Welle in China. In May 2017, Shi-Kupfer was appointed member of the expert committee of the German-Chinese platform on innovation under the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Since 2019 she is also a member of the Sino-German Working Group on Digital Business Models as part of the Platform Industry 4.0 initiated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and Federal Ministry of Education and Research. She will stay at EURICS from 1st of February to 31th of March 2020.

Research project

This research project aims to shed more light onto the question of what kind of objectives, strategies and tools different types of Chinese-language media utilize, whether modes of mutual interaction can be identified and what kind of impact they have on the Chinese diaspora community. France (Paris) is a very important and valuable case study as it is home to the largest Chinese community in Europe.  The following key topics and how they have been covered by various Chinese language media potentially have impacted the media perception of the Chinese diaspora in France: 
- the suspended police cooperation between Beijing and Paris, after France granted asylum to the wife of former head of Interpol, Meng Hongwei 
- reoccurring clashes/protests between the Chinese community and French authorities over killings and robbery of ethnic Chinese [2016 and 2017]
- overall positive perception of China’s presence and influence in France among the French populace (i.e. no less than 78 per cent of the respondents see Chinese influx positive”; survey Kantar Public for Institut Montaigne 2018/2019)