Shai Oster

Shai Oster is an American journalist, the Asia Bureau Chief of the Information. He was formerly with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Bloomberg Businessweek.

He has won several awards in more than a decade as a journalist in China, Europe, and the U.S., writing about a broad range of economic, business and social issues. Before joining the WSJ China Bureau, Oster covered OPEC for Dow Jones Newswires in London. He previously served as Beijing bureau chief for Asiaweek magazine and as Beijing correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs and the San Francisco Chronicle. The recipient of the George Polk Award for environmental reporting and Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Award in 2008, he was also part of a Wall Street Journal team that won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting on China. The jury cited the WSJ staff for "its sharply edged reports on the adverse impact of China's booming capitalism on conditions ranging from inequality to pollution." Shai received his B.A. in history from Columbia University in 1994 and a master's degree in Journalism from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1998.

He is known for his reporting on the Three Gorges Dam. Oster reported details regarding environmental problems with the dam and impacts on Chinese citizens living within affected areas along the banks of the Yangzee River including 1.4 million people forced to leave their homes by the government. Specifically, he noted that the Chinese government intended to displace a further 4 million people, a claim that sparked controversy, others claiming the resettlement plan was only tangentally related to the dam.

Oster was born in Jerusalem and speaks Hebrew, French, Mandarin and English. He lives in Hong Kong with his wife Alisha Alexander