HONG KONG — Weeks before Ukraine said men from China are fighting for Russia, a Chinese journalist spoke to one of them on YouTube. From a corner of her book-adorned living room, Chai Jing, a prominent television reporter who left the spotlight of China’s state broadcaster a decade ago, video-calls the Chinese mercenary stranded in eastern Ukraine while serving in the Russian army.

The sound of gunfire echoes in the background. The man, who is dressed in camouflage and goes by the alias Makalong, tells Chai that many Chinese who participate in Russia’s side of the fight are influenced by nationalistic action dramas such as Wolf Warrior. But after witnessing the reality of Russia’s aggression, he tells Chai that he regrets his decision. “The battlefield is merciless, like a true version of hell,” he says. “I hope China will not become involved in a war.”

Given Beijing’s ambiguity toward the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Chai’s interview tackles a sensitive topic for any Chinese journalist to handle. Along with a follow-up episode on Chinese citizens fighting for Ukraine, the two episodes have together attracted more than 2 million views since March. International media pursued similar stories in the weeks that followed. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 155 Chinese citizens are fighting for Russia in the war. It’s unclear how many are helping the Ukrainian side.

A video screen shows scenes from the movie Wolf Warrior 2 outside a theater in Beijing on Aug. 21, 2017. A Chinese mercenary stranded in eastern Ukraine tells Chai Jing that many Chinese who participate in Russia’s side of the fight are influenced by nationalistic action dramas such as Wolf Warrior.

Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

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Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Chai is China’s Lesley Stahl 

For many viewers from China, 49-year-old Chai was at the pinnacle of television news. Media experts compare her to Lesley Stahl, and a 2012 memoir she published has continued to inspire young journalists. In 2015, her self-funded documentary, Under the Dome, was widely credited for raising awareness about air pollution in China. Its viewership reached 300 million before censors took it down within a week amid rebukes against Chai, primarily from defenders of China’s coal-driven growth model.

Not long after the backlash, Chai left Beijing and moved to Barcelona, Spain, where she led a low-key life with her family. It wasn’t until 2023 that she resurfaced on YouTube, first with a six-part documentary on terrorism, followed by a biweekly show. Within less than two years, Chai has garnered more than 850,000 subscribers to her channel, despite YouTube being blocked in China, accessible only by using a virtual private network (VPN). The audience size is a tiny fraction of what she once commanded at China Central Television (CCTV). Yet already, her program has become one of the most popular overseas Chinese-language news productions.

Much of Chai’s show delves deep into China’s recent history, featuring a string of guests whom state broadcasters would have found too controversial to air. Among her interviewees have been the daughter of Mao Zedong’s secretary, who is in a legal dispute with the authorities; a witness who survived the horror of the Cultural Revolution; and writers entangled with the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

“Most of the time, I’m just finishing up the work that got cut off [at CCTV],” she tells NPR.

But the history she picks up also resonates with today’s political landscape in China. In one recent episode, Chai revisits the notorious mafia crackdown in China’s southwestern Chongqing municipality that began in 2009. The campaign ultimately led to the downfall of Bo Xilai, once a prominent contender for the Communist Party leadership. Wrapping up the episode, Chai notes China’s lack of reflection on Bo’s populist mobilization of judicial power and the damage it continues to inflict on the nation. She points out to her viewers that the same mechanism “is still in motion 16 years later.”

Chai is one of the growing cohort of intellectuals who have started anew abroad

Chai’s show puts her among a growing cohort of public intellectuals who have left China in recent years. Many of them have lately become more outspoken on public affairs as the space for independent voices at home wanes. Several of them, like Chai, built their original careers in legacy media but now have found a new presence on YouTube.

Some of them offer almost daily news updates. Others provide criticism that openly references leader Xi Jinping. Their arrival has broadly elevated the quality of Chinese-language news content on YouTube, which has long been awash with political hearsay and armchair analysis, media experts say.

Chai’s show, in contrast, features heart-wrenching interviews combined with meticulous research, sprinkled throughout with incisive yet measured comments from her.

“She’s added a personal touch to professional journalism,” says Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Finally there’s a high-caliber news program on YouTube for audiences from China.”

Chai’s interviews appear to strike a chord back home, even as popular platforms have deleted videos repackaging her show. Shortly after she posted her interview with Makalong, the Chinese man in the Russian force, users on popular social media app RedNote discovered an account that Makalong had created. They posted comments wishing for his safe return and said they found him through Chai’s YouTube show.

Chai’s return coincides with growing restrictions in China

Chai’s followers note that her show is a throwback to an era that has largely evaporated since Xi took power in 2012. For many years in the early 2000s, Chinese public intellectuals enjoyed leeway for free expression despite formal controls. State media reporters like Chai found space to do muckraking journalism. For her, that ended when she left the country eight years ago for Spain.

Then, another move by China’s increasingly paranoid censors prompted Chai’s return to journalism.

At the end of 2023, a string of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one of China’s most respected news outlets, vanished from its website. They included articles honoring former Premier Li Keqiang, AIDS epidemic whistleblower Dr. Gao Yaojie and other remarkable figures who had passed away that year. Chai tells NPR that she felt compelled to act.

Former Premier Li Keqiang (center) died in 2023. At the end of that year, a series of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one of China’s most respected news outlets, disappeared from its website. They included articles honoring Li and other figures who had passed away that year.

Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

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Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

Former Premier Li Keqiang (center) died in 2023. At the end of that year, a series of obituaries produced by Caixin Media, one of China’s most respected news outlets, disappeared from its website. They included articles honoring Li and other figures who had passed away that year.

Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

“How come we aren’t even allowed to say goodbye?!” she recalls thinking. “I’ll bid my own farewells.”

Within days, she created a 24-minute memorial episode on Gao that quickly reached over half a million views. With more tributes that she added in the next few weeks, a new program started to take shape. She says she did the show largely on her own, including learning to edit videos for the first time.

For more complicated subject matter, she went an extra mile to look for contacts and seek corroboration, she says. For the episodes on the Russia-Ukraine war, for example, she interviewed five other soldiers to nail down the coordinates of a Chinese man who died fighting for Ukraine. One of her sources, an ethnic Chinese man who calls himself Atticus, says Chai sometimes contacted him well past midnight, fact-checking details.

“It is more demanding than a full-time job,” Chai tells NPR. “I need to try and relive what those people have gone through.”