Selina Wang's biography

Selina Wang joined ABC News in 2023 as senior White House correspondent.

Wang, an award-winning journalist, was previously in CNN’s Beijing bureau as the network’s sole correspondent in China. She has reported on key stories from China and the Asia-Pacific region, leading coverage on China’s economic, political and societal transformation and its evolving relationships with governments and leaders around the world.

As Beijing rushed to censor negative information, Wang told the stories of a mourning family who blamed the government for the death of their loved ones, suicide and depression during lockdowns, the unsanitary conditions people were forced to quarantine in, clashes between residents and police, and covid enforcers’ brutal use of force.

During the pandemic, Wang was the only American broadcaster reporting on the ground in China during the historic anti-zero-COVID protests. She provided extensive coverage of how China’s security forces clamped down on demonstrators, interviewed protesters, and conducted the first on-camera interview with the Chinese citizen who helped the world get real-time footage of the protests through Twitter.

Wang filed numerous reports about her own experience dealing with health surveillance, mass testing and long government quarantines, including one that lasted 21 days in a government facility. She was the first to deeply investigate the extreme measures people were taking to flee China and its COVID policies. Through months of reporting, she interviewed several people illegally escaping China and entering America through the U.S.-Mexico border.

When China lifted its strict COVID policies, Wang visited hospitals, crematoriums and funeral homes to uncover the scale of the outbreak. She also went deep into rural China to report on the impact of the pandemic, and her story captured how local officials attempted to obstruct her reporting.

Prior to her role in Beijing, Wang was a Tokyo-based correspondent, where she covered the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, leading the network’s coverage from Japan. In the year leading up to the Games, she led the network’s coverage from Japan, be it breaking news, in-depth analysis or exclusive interviews. Wang reported on the challenges Japan faced hosting the Games during the pandemic as well as the opposition to the Olympics from the business community, public health workers and Olympic volunteers. During the Games, she secured interviews with athletes and officials and led coverage of key events.

Wang was also a host of CNN’s long-form feature program “Marketplace Asia,” taking viewers into different business trends with comprehensive interviews and profiles. She also hosted episodes of CNN’s award-winning feature shows “Eco Solutions” and “Innovate Japan.”

Prior to joining CNN, Wang was a correspondent and anchor for Bloomberg TV based in Beijing. Before moving to China, she was based in San Francisco, covering the global technology, venture capital and social media industries for Bloomberg News, Television and Businessweek Magazine. Wang has also reported across Bloomberg’s platforms in New York and Hong Kong.

Wang was selected for the Forbes “30 Under 30” Asia list in 2023 and won the Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Journalist. For a 2021 episode of “Eco Solutions,” Wang was awarded Best Lifestyle Program at the Asian Academy Creative Awards. Her work was recognized by the Newswomen’s Club of New York, won the Front Page Award, and received an honorable mention from the Society of Business Editors and Writers.

Born in Washington state and fluent in Mandarin, Wang graduated from Harvard University with an economics degree and a secondary degree in government. She was a John Harvard Scholar for being in the top five percent of her class and was awarded the Detur Book Prize for her high academic standing.