The SMG production “China’s Challenges” has garnered an Emmy Award in Los Angeles, the first ever for a Chinese media company in the documentary category.

The SMG production "China's Challenges" has garnered an Emmy Award in Los Angeles, the first ever for a Chinese media company in the documentary category.

The documentary series was produced by ICS, a member of Shanghai Media Group and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the author of “How China’s Leaders Think.” The documentary followed Kuhn as he traveled across China, exploring how the country is tackling critical issues while undergoing vast transformations to urbanization and confronting a changing global economic environment.

He visited so-called “left-behind” children in rural areas; “Taobao villages,” where almost everyone is doing business on China’s biggest online shopping platform; as well as metropolises like Shanghai, examining how China is dealing with disparities in wealth and education, social clashes, pollution, competing priorities and the tension between the country’s traditional culture against reform and modernization.

The two seasons of “China’s Challenges” were made in 2012 and 2014 and have won China’s top news awards. The series has been broadcast about 4,000 times on 210 PBS stations. The second season has reached 117 cities among 37 states in the United States since 2015.

“Americans are eager to know more about the critical issues that China’s new leaders faced. And we want to know opinions of the Chinese people,” said Mel Rogers, president, PBS SoCal.

Germany, Australia and South Korea have also broadcast the series.