Born in Guangzhou in 1990, Zhao Sile 赵思乐 graduated from Guangzhou No. 2 Middle School. She was then enrolled in Nanjing University in 2009.
From September 2011 to February 2012, Zhao went to Taiwan as an exchange student and began to engage in independent news writing. Her works were published in Hong Kong magazine “Sunshine Current Affairs”新新聞 and Taiwan magazine “New News”新新聞
Her blog article was awarded by French “Le Monde” Report. From September 2012 to May 2013, she worked as a reporter for “Sunshine Times” 陽光時務 in Hong Kong. The series of reports on the election of Wukan Village 烏坎村 in collaboration with reporter Zhang Jieping won the 2012 Hong Kong Human Rights Journalism Award.
In July 2013, Zhao joined the “Voice of Women’s Rights”, an independent media for women’s rights in China. In, Zhao Sile, in support of the human rights of sex workers, sued the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department on the issue of information disclosure on Custody and Education, which was called “the first case of accountability for Custody and Education”
In November 2014, Zhao Sile’s husband and NGO worker Liu Jianshu were detained by the Chinese police. She took leave from her job to appeal for Liu Jianshu’s release.
In March 2015, the Chinese government detained five women’s rights activists, known as the “Five Sisters of Women’s Rights” 「女權五姊妹」case. Zhao Sile wrote an appeal for their release. The works were published in Foreign Policy and German Der Spiegel. After the conclusion of the legal case, the Chinese feminist movement was hit.
Zhao Sile resigned from the “Voice of Feminist Rights” 「女權之聲」to focus on China’s political repression and surveillance. She won several Hong Kong Human Rights News Awards and an Asian Publishing Association Award for Excellence in Journalism. Zhao Sile opened a China commentary column on the Hong Kong East Net東網 . In August 2016, the East Net interviewed Wang Yu, a lawyer who was arrested in the 709 case and charged with going against journalistic ethics.
In July 2015, Zhao Sile and Liu Jianshu divorced. In August 2016, Ms Zhao remarried Chinese dissident writer Mo Zhixu. In 2017, she published the book “Their Journey: Direct Attack, Detour and Clash: The Road to the Awakening of Chinese Women’s Citizens” 《她們的征途：直擊、迂迴與衝撞，中國女性的公民覺醒之路》. This work has been featured in many Hong Kong, Taiwan and English media. It was selected by AsiaWeek as the 2017 “Top Ten Good Books” in the non-fiction category .
Starting in 2018, Ms Zhao went to Georgetown University USA to study for a master’s degree in global politics for two years. After graduating with a master’s degree in 2020, Sile Zhao worked as a Chinese law researcher at the Asian Law Center of Georgetown University Law School. She is currently residing in the US and calls herself Alison Zhao.