China: The Most Misread Deep Tech Market

Most founders either romanticize China or avoid it entirely. Both are costly mistakes. I lived in China through the 1990s and the early 2000s. I learned Mandarin, attended post-grad at Peking and Nanjing Universities, later worked in Beijing and Hong Kong, and was in China when its technology sector was born. During that period, near […]

China Just Redefined the PhD. The Rest of the World Hasn’t Caught Up Yet.

China’s “Practical PhD” and what it means for every PhD founder worldwide In January 2025, China’s landmark Degrees Law came into force. This is the first legislation to explicitly permit doctoral candidates to apply for degrees through “practice achievement defenses” alongside traditional thesis defenses. What’s changed? Under the law, universities can now award doctorates in […]

Central Asia: opportunities revisited

I first traveled to Almaty in 1998 as a very young investment banker keen to research a complex deal (they were never easy) related to a cross-border gas pipeline between Kazakhstan and China. This was before China’s Belt and Road Initiative took off, but was an early sign of what was coming. GDP in Kazakhstan […]

China’s Next Act: From Hollywood to Harvard?

This article was published in Edsurge on March 21,2016. Could China buy America’s top universities? When this question appeared on Quora a few years ago it was quickly dismissed as unworkable from a governance perspective. But the ambition behind the question remains: If Chinese investors could, they would. What else might China acquire from America’s […]

Central Asia’s New Silk Road: Game Changers

“No need to listen for the fall. This is the World’s end.” — Rudyard Kipling, Kim During a long, cold flight to Almaty in the late 1990s I sat sleepless reading Peter Hopkirk’s landmark history of the region, “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.” My colleagues and I were about to spend the […]

How Asia is Emerging as the World's EdTech Laboratory

Editor’s note: a more concise article on this theme was initially published by EdSurge If the US is the world’s education technology leader, Asia is fast becoming its most critical testing ground. The reasons for this are unambiguous: Asia is home to the world’s largest pool of K12 and college enrollments, has acute needs for educational access coupled deep internet […]

Will China be the Next Education Superpower?

Editor’s note: This post first appeared in the online publication EdReach. From A Nation at Risk to US Education Reform and National Security, education and economic competitiveness have long been part of America’s geopolitical calculus. But with an emergent China gradually moving toward deeper innovation and a smarter workforce, the stakes have suddenly become higher. In a recent New York Review of Books article, educator Diane Ravitch reassures us that China’s educational […]

MOOCs in China – Dream On?

American MOOCs (massive open online courses) have always been geared toward large emerging markets so it is no surprise that leaders such as Coursera and EdX are now hurtling into China. It seems deceptively easy: MOOCs deliver course content from US universities through free or low-cost alternatives. They partner with Chinese University counterparts or ISPs […]

Why is Chinese Productivity Crushing its Neighbors?

Chinese workers are dramatically outperforming their neighbors with important implications for Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. (Pakistan’s stagnant productivity is not as surprising). Between 2000 and 2011, China’s output per employed person grew by approximately 280%. Vietnam’s 160% is a close second (see chart below). Is this a matter of Chinese productivity rising to higher output […]

What Will Determine China's Future Competitiveness?

A recent article in the South China Morning Post is the latest to question China’s “competitiveness” through labor and, by extension, the RMB’s consistent appreciation against the US dollar. As many have argued, competitiveness is measured by labor productivity and, more specifically, the size of China’s future workforce as measured by a recent peak in the number […]