BI Yantao (Mr.) is an independent observer, nonpartisan freelancer and communication professor based in mainland China. Born in Shandong Province in eastern China, Yantao received education in China, UK and Ireland. His major research areas are strategic communication, political communication and discourse analysis.
Born into a farmer family, BI Yantao holds the firm belief that China needs a stronger civil society to ensure an improved relationship between the government and the people, to combat bureaucracy and corruption. That is why in recent years Yantao has been making every effort to help empower the grassroots organizations in China.
BI Yantao deems that political communication studies can benefit both the elites and the grassroots. To impart the knowledge and techniques he has accumulated these years, Yantao has been working as Director of Center for Communication Studies, Hainan University, China, since he founded the Center December 2004.
To promote exchange and cooperation among communication researchers, BI Yantao established Daizong Meditation Room at the foot of Mt. Taishan in 2008. As the first non-profit research center of its kind in China, Daizong Meditation Room is designed to promote the political communication studies in China and advance the democratization of the socialist country. It is open to all interested researchers over the world, free of charge.
To verify and enahnce his expertise, Yantao has been active in different kinds of social movement. Prof. BI is now Director for Asian Affairs, Global Unification International (GUI), an NGO headquartered in Australia. In the meantime, he works as a consultant for several other entities.
As a consistent advocate of freedom of expression in China, Yantao is a diligent writer. He is a contributing author of Global Voices Online. Meanwhile, he writes for dozens of influential Chinese websites and journals. As of Februrary 2013 he has published 10 books and more than 500 articles in print media of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, UK, USA, Canada and Germany.
"Mastery of effective communication techinues is a prerequisite to realize our targets at lower costs.”
