Xu Zhiyuan is a columnist for the Financial Times Chinese. After graduating from Peking University in 2000, he became a journalist and author. He was Editorial Editor for The Economic Observer and Executive Editor for Bloomberg BusinessWeek China. He won the Excellence in Opinion Writing SOPA award in 2008. He was also selected as a participant in the National Committee on US-China Relations Young Leaders Forum in 2006 and the BMW Foundation Young Leaders Forum in 2005. His latest books are Alienated from the Motherland and The Totalitarian Temptation.