Sophia Yan

About

Sophia Yan is an award-winning senior foreign correspondent for the Telegraph, based in Istanbul.She is the host of several documentaries and narrative podcasts that investigate global human rights abuses and transnational repression, including "China's Secret Military Base" (2024), “Kidnappings and Ghost Towns” (2023), “How To Become a Dictator” (2022), “Inside Xinjiang” (2021), and “Hong Kong Silenced” (2021).Sophia’s investigations have unveiled shadowy terrorist financing networks across the Middle East, Russia’s illegal abduction of Ukrainian children, China's brutal crackdown against Muslim groups, and human trafficking networks between China, Europe, and the US.At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, her reporting revealed that the Chinese government was not accurately reporting the country's death toll, and in 2019, exposed how Chinese secret police kidnapped and tortured a British consulate worker.Sophia received the 2020 Marie Colvin Award for her coverage of China, where she was based for a decade. She was routinely harassed, assaulted and threatened by Chinese authorities for her reporting.Prior to the Telegraph, Sophia was an on-air correspondent for CNBC in Beijing, where she broadcast live from Tiananmen Square, World Economic Forum in Dalian, Boao Forum, Belt and Road Forum; and interviewed CEOs and senior executives from Huawei, Google DeepMind, Sinopec, Xiaomi, ZTE, Boston Consulting Group, Inter Milan, and more.She previously covered government, business and breaking news for CNN and Bloomberg, based in Hong Kong and Washington DC. Sophia lived in Japan as a 2015 Abe Journalist Fellow reporting on gender equality, has also been based in Taipei and Honolulu, and began her career at Time Magazine.Sophia is frequently invited to moderate and speak at embassies, universities and conferences, including the Oslo Freedom Forum. She is a regular contributor to the BBC and Monocle 24.An accomplished classical pianist, Sophia has won several competitions and performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Fontainebleau Chateau, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and Aspen Music Festival. She is the co-founder and pianist of Western District, a chamber collective in Hong Kong, and is the official pianist for the "Lawfare" and "Rational Security" podcasts.The New York Times has described her as a performer whose "music literally pulls her off the piano bench; she ranges up and down the keyboard so quickly and with such ferocity that mere sitting will not do."