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Winner of the Young China Watcher's writing competition 2023

16 October 2023

We’re delighted to announce the winner of this year’s writing competition with Young China Watchers which aims to discover the newest young writers on China in the UK, and provide a platform to help foster the next generation of China experts.

First prize was awarded to Natasha Lock for her essay on the evolution of China’s space journey from the height of the Cultural Revolution to the present day. Natasha looked at the assumptions behind China’s prioritisation of national space building and how factors like current geopolitics or space policy disagreements would hinder progress and future space missions. Read the essay.

“Contemporary debates on China tend to focus on what the Party’s intentions are and how these will implicate the world. But what has China’s space journey looked like? How can space innovation serve the CCP’s domestic and foreign policy? What are some of the challenges for space exploration in the 21st century?” – Natasha Lock

This year’s competition invited entries on the theme of China: Knowledge Superpower? Entries were judged by Daniel Brooker, Director at UKRI China, Bin Xu, Digital Innovation Lead at Pfizer (Asia Pacific), Brian Wong, Founding editor in chief, Oxford Politics Review and Charlotte Goodburn, Deputy Director at the Lau China Institute.

Clementine Pippa Abel and Roxanne Stevenson-Brown were runners up in the competition for their essays examining education and healthcare in China respectively. Read their essays 'Will China's ambitions for knowledge supremacy be realised?' and 'Where are all the allied health professionals?'

“The success of Beijing’s investment in education will ultimately be measured by research outcomes and their practical application in supporting scientific and technological breakthroughs. For China to become a knowledge superpower it needs to work at scale across multiple sectors, with broad global reach”. – Clementine Pippa Abel, Runner Up

Thank you to all those who entered this year's competition.

Congratulations Natasha, Roxanne and Clementine.