Dr. William H. Overholt is a distinguished Asia Expert with five decades of experience in research, analysis, and advisory for leading investment banks, think tanks, government and educational institutions. He is a prolific author with a broad set of knowledge and experience he leverages to bring insights into Asia’s complex social and political context. Overholt’s assessment of US-China relations is very sober. At the same time, he believes China’s growth trajectory is declining and its long-term political structure is not guaranteed. In many ways, the cycle of history continues, something which Overholt has personally witnessed first hand.

In this conversation, Dr Overholt is extremely critical of US policy makers, across generations, in setting into a motion a delcine in US-China relations. That being said, China has made its own share of mistakes. While nothing is permanent, there is a dearth Sinologist talents in the US government, while Xi Jin Ping is completely unbridled, both detrimental factos to constructive engagement.

Managing the Dragon:

An absolutely wonderful conversation with the one and only Jack Perkowski

Mr Jack Perkowski, aka Mr China, is among the best known US entrepreneurs focused on China.  His journey to China began in 1990 when he left a successful career on Wall Street to pursue a dream.  Perkowski understood the the power of long-term trends, in this case the development of China in the new era of Economic Reform and Opening up established by Deng Xiao Ping.  After a couple of years of due diligence, he settled on the auto parts industry, where the government was eager for foreign technology, capital, and know-how.   He founded ASIMCO in 1994, which developed into a unique organisation with 17 manufacturing plants across China.

Perkowski recorded many of his experiences working in China in his book, Managing the Dragon: How I’m Building a Billion Dollar Business In China, published by Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, in March 2008.  This is one of the best books I have read about doing business in China, full of insights into China’s economic and political system, the challenges of Joint Ventures, and wisdom of succeeding in business. A former football player at Yale, Perkowski combines the grit of anathlete from Pittsburgh with the sophistication of an international financial and operational executive.  And to top it off, he is a genuinely warm, earnest and optimistic man.  I am sure you will enjoy this conversation.

The JFP Holdings staff includes more than a dozen professionals, including representatives in the United States and the United Kingdom, with extensive first-hand experience doing business in China and significant investment banking knowledge. JFP Holdings is uniquely positioned to assist global companies develop their strategies for the China market and to help them implement and fund their China strategies. With its deep knowledge of both China and the world’s developed markets, the JFP Holdings staff provides Chinese companies with value added advice on their overseas expansion plans

Goldman explains why China came out of the pandemic even stronger than before and how it is methodically following a strategy to displace the United States, whose decline appears increasingly precipitous and hapless.

David P. Goldman is Deputy Editor of Asia Times, where he has written the “Spengler” column since 2000, and a Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute. His books include How Civilizations Die (2011), It’s Not the End of the World –– It’s Just the End of You (2011), and You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form the World (2020). He publishes in The Wall Street Journal, Claremont Review of Books, First Things, Tablet Magazine, Law and Liberty, PJ Media and many other venues. He was global head of fixed income research at Bank of America and global head of credit strategies at Credit Suisse, among other senior positions in finance. He won Institutional Investor magazine’s award for General Strategy, one of the highest honors in investment research. 

James Fok’s unique perspective on US-China relations traces back to having grown up in a biracial family in Hong Kong and studying in the UK and his work for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a nexus for China’s enterprise and global capital.

Fok’s new book provides a breadth of context into the historical factors that have brought us to this point. 

There is no more critical determinant for global peace and prosperity than the interaction between the United States and China.  While the incumbent superpower grapples with deep domestic social and political divisions and a breakdown in trust in the international system, the rising superpower seeks to assert what it sees at its rightful place at the top of the global order.  Whether we like it or not, all of us find ourselves in the midst of a “Financial Cold War” between the West and China, and now Russia. 

Fok is a veteran financial and strategic advisor to corporations and governments. He served as a senior executive at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) from 2012 until 2021, during a period of rapid internationalisation in China’s capital markets. While there, he played a major role in a number of landmark financial markets initiatives, including the launch of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme (2014), Bond Connect (2017) and the Hong Kong market’s Listing Reforms (2018). Prior to HKEX, Fok worked as an investment banker in both Europe and Asia, specialising in the financial services sector.

Laszlo Montgomery is the founder of Teacup Media. The Teacup Media podcast network offers a variety of shows on all things China. Whether you’re interested in learning more about China’s illustrious culture or picking up a new chengyu, Teacup Media has a show to suit all your interests.

Montgomery researches, writes, and records each episode of his 4 shows: The China History Podcast, The Chinese Sayings Podcast, and the China Vintage Hour. He also has a wonderful “radio voice” that makes for entertaining listening.

Laszlo has worked in the China market for over 30 years and possesses a deep passion, appreciation, and understanding of its unique culture, compelling history, and captivating stories.
With a home base in sunny Southern California, Laszlo is also available to travel for speaking engagements, lectures, and interviews.

You can find his content at https://teacup.media/

Andrew Leung is a prominent international and independent China Strategist. He spent 38 years in Hong Kong government service, including positions as Assistant Financial Secretary, Deputy Secretary for Transport, Deputy Director-General of Industry, Director-General of Social Welfare, and Director-General London.

After retirement, Leung has participated in dozens of organizations where he shares his deep knowledge on Hong Kong and China issues. In 2003 he was invited by Prince Andrew for private briefing leading to HRH’s first visit to China as UK’s Ambassador for Trade and Investment. He also advised on cross-cultural management in Lenovo’s take-over of IBM Computers.

His graduate qualifications include University of London, postgraduate qualifications, Cambridge University, PMD, and Harvard Business School.

Professor Hansen a star professor at Yale University, has taught there since 1988. She currently teaches three lecture courses: China Present to Past (with Peter C. Perdue); The World Circa 1000 (with Anders Winroth); and The Silk Road Rediscovered and the following seminars: Social History of the Chinese Silk Road, Issues in Tang, Song, and Yuan history, Documents of the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties. Hansen has published 5 books, the most recent one being: The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began, which explains how a new system of global pathways formed in the year 1000 following the Vikings’ arrival in northeastern Canada.

This fascinating conversation highlights the influence of early Chinese civilisation on contemporary China and beyond, as well as how foreign influences have been absorbed into the Greater Chinese cultural indentity.

David Zweig’s expertise lies in the areas of Chinese politics and political risk, China’s search for talent and efforts to generate reverse migration, China’s domestic and international political economy, China’s resource diplomacy, Chinese higher education, China’s foreign policy and its ties to East Asia and the US, Hong Kong politics and Hong Kong-Mainland relations.He studied in Beijing in 1974-1976 and did field research in rural China in 1980-1981 and 1986. In 1991-92 and 1997, he did field research in Jiangsu Province on China’s “opening to the outside world.” Since 1991, he has travelled around China interviewing returned academics, scientists, entrepreneurs and employees, as well as Chinese studying and working in the West. Dr. Zweig is a Canadian citizen.

Having lived in Hong Kong for around five decades, Dr. Zeman created Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong District and is Chairman of the Lan Kwai Fong Group. He was also Chairman of Hong Kong Ocean Park, a major theme park in Hong Kong. He has been a member of the General Committee of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and Hong Kong China’s representative to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council. Dr. Zeman was a Special Advisor to his Our Hong Kong Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting the long-term and overall interests of Hong Kong and a Board Member of the Airport Authority of Hong Kong. Dr. Zeman was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong. He was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2004 and the Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2011.