Hu Yong, an experienced Mainland Chinese journalist, comments on his blog on an earlier blog post in Bingfeng teahouse: What prevent guys like Nicholas Kristof from understanding China correctly? He puts forward three principles (zh):

“If you want to research China outside China, your research starting point must begin from China, not the West. The meaning of ‘starting point from China’ has three implication: firstly, the focus of the research should be on the internal factors rather than external ones; secondly, the source of historical changes also comes from within; thirdly, to contextualize China issue within Chinese context.”