Emily Jane Cohen was an American journalist whose writing mainly focussed on China and who notably wrote for more than 20 years with The Economist. After a year in Taiwan studying Chinese, she returned to the United States by way of India, where she ran into her former supervisor, who was covering Nehru's funeral. They were married six months later and settled in London, where The Economist hired her in 1965. Her routine was to make long interview trips to Asia several times a year, using reports from The Economist's extensive freelance network at other times.

In her last years in London, she also worked for British television on Channel 4, covering politics from Northern Ireland, Hong Kong and British regional issues.