Vicky Xu is a writer, investigative journalist and researcher. Prior to joining ASPI in 2019, she covered China and Australia for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and later the New York Times. Her writings have also appeared in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Saturday Paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and others.

At ASPI, she was the lead author of the ground-breaking report Uyghurs for Sale about systematic forced Uyghur labour that had tainted supply chains, implicating Nike, Apple, and some 80 other companies. Her research findings have been quoted in legislations around the world, as well as media outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times, AP, CNN, NBC, CBS; the ABC, Channel 10, SBS in Australia; BBC and Channel 4 in the U.K.; NHK in Japan, and more.

Hailing from China’s remote and impoverished Gansu Province, Xu was initially selected and trained to become an English-language newsreader for Chinese state media. She abandoned her studies in Beijing, and obtained a Political Science degree at the University of Melbourne. During her exchange semester in Jerusalem, she researched One Belt One Road, China-Iran and China-Turkey relations at The Harry S. Truman Research Institute.