Isabel Hilton studied at the Beijing Foreign Language and Culture University and at Fudan University in Shanghai before taking up a career in written and broadcast journalism, working for The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, and the New Yorker.
In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC’s flagship news program, “The World Tonight,” then BBC Radio Three’s cultural program “Night Waves.” She is a columnist for The Guardian and her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications.
She is the author and co-author of several books and is founder and editor of chinadialogue.net, a non-profit, fully bilingual online publication based in London, Beijing, and Delhi that focuses on the environment and climate change.
Hilton holds two honorary doctorates and was awarded the OBE for her work in raising environmental awareness in China.
Bushra Bataineh has a Ph.D. from the School of Engineering at Stanford University in civil and envrionmental engineering. Her research, under the Stanford Global Projects Center, focused on assessing global infrastructure procurement and delivery. Bushra has works in infrastructure finance focusing on water and energy projects, transaction advisory focusing on social and transportation infrastructure, and project development focusing on water, biofuels, and agribusiness. Check out her Stanford paper, 'How the Belt and Road Gained Steam: Causes and Implications of China’s Rise in Global Infrastructure' here https://siepr.stanford.edu/.../files/publications/wp1051.pdf
Tim Clissold has lived and worked in China for more than twenty years and has traveled to most parts of the country. After graduating with degrees in physics and theoretical physics from Cambridge, and working in London, Australia, and Hong Kong, he developed a fascination with China. He spent two years studying Mandarin in Beijing before cofounding a private equity group that invested more than $400 million there. He has since spent time at Goldman Sachs recovering distressed assets and, more recently, started a business that invests in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in China through the UN's Clean Development Mechanism. Mr. China was his first book. It has been translated into twelve languages and was an Economist magazine Book of the Year.
Gabriel is a Senior Vice President focusing on political risk analysis in China. He was previously Shanghai Bureau Chief for the Financial Times, where he covered China’s macro-economy, financial system, and markets.
Prior to the Financial Times, Gabriel served as the China Finance Correspondent and Markets Correspondent for Reuters, where he wrote daily reports on China’s interbank foreign exchange and money markets. He also worked as a research analyst for SK Group China and as the Beijing bureau chief for GaveKal-Dragonomics, a macro-economic consultancy. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and is fluent in Mandarin.
Emily Feng is NPR's (National Public Radio) Beijing correspondent. Feng joined NPR in February 2019. She roves around China, through its big cities and small villages, reporting on social trends as well as economic and political news coming out of Beijing. From 2017 through 2019, Feng served as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times. Based in Beijing, she covered a broad range of topics, including human rights, technology, and the environment. While in this position, Feng made four trips to Xinjiang under difficult reporting circumstances. During these trips, Feng reported extensively on China's detention and surveillance campaign in the western region of Xinjiang, was the first foreign reporter to uncover that China was “separating” Uighur children from their parents and sending them to state-run orphanages, and uncovered that China was introducing “forced labor” in Xinjiang's detention camps.
For her coverage of “human rights abuses” in Xinjiang, Feng was shortlisted for the Amnesty Media Awards in February 2019 and won a Human Rights Press merit award for breaking news coverage that May. Feng also earned two spots on the October 2018 British Journalism Awards shortlists: Best Foreign Coverage for her work covering Xinjiang, and Young Journalist of the Year for overall reporting excellence.
Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. He is an Associate of the Asia Pacific Programme at Chatham House, London, an adjunct of the Australia New Zealand School of Government in Melbourne, and the co-editor of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, run from the German Institute for Global Affairs in Hamburg. He is President-Elect of the Kent Archaeological Society and an Affiliate of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at Cambridge University.
From 2012 to 2015 he was Professor of Chinese Politics and Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia. Prior to this he worked at Chatham House from 2006 to 2012, as Senior Fellow and then Head of the Asia Programme. From 1998 to 2005 he worked at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing, and then as Head of the Indonesia, Philippine and East Timor Section. He lived in the Inner Mongolia region of China from 1994 to 1996.
He has a Master of Arts from Cambridge University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Mandarin Chinese (Distinction) from Thames Valley University, London, and a PhD in Chinese politics and language from Leeds University. Professor Brown directed the Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN) giving policy advice to the European External Action Service between 2011 and 2014. He is the author of almost 20 books on modern Chinese politics, and has written for every major international news outlet, and been interviewed by every major news channel on issues relating to contemporary China.
Jinny is ICBC Standard Bank’s Chief China Economist, and leads the China markets strategy and research team. Her focus is to deliver China macroeconomic and market insights to internal and external stakeholders. Her team launched the Belt and Road Economic Indices, which offers unique insight into China’s increasing connectivity with emerging economies.
Prior to joining ICBCS, Jinny was a London-based Senior Economist at Standard Chartered Bank. She covered key China-Europe macro topics with a focus on Renminbi internationalisation. Her previous economist roles include covering China based in Shanghai, Europe, and supporting the Chief Economist.
Heading up the European RMB Solutions team, Jinny chaired the Education and Marketing stream of the City of London’s Renminbi initiative. Widely recognised as a China and Renminbi expert in London, she makes frequent appearances in media and at high-level conferences.
Rupert Mitchell is the current Chief Strategy Officer of WM Motor. Founded in 2015, WM Motor is an emerging leader in China’s fast-growing electric vehicle and e-mobility market. At WM, Rupert is responsible for strategic financing, investments and corporate development. He joined the company in 2018, following a 25-year career in financial services in Asia and Europe. During that time, Rupert held a number of advisory and capital markets positions in investment banking, including senior roles at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Jefferies.
Bill Birtles was the ABC's China correspondent in Beijing from 2015 to 2020, his posting coming to a sudden end when he was rushed out of the country by Australian diplomats in an unprecedented diplomatic standoff. Reporting from both major cities and remote provinces throughout the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he covered an era-defining period of change, upheaval and diplomatic tension as China asserted itself on the world stage.
Originally from Sydney, Birtles first studied Mandarin in the Chinese capital and later worked inside the government's most important state media and propaganda organ, the Xinhua news agency, before returning to Beijing for the ABC. He is now covering South-East Asia as the ABC's Indonesia Bureau Chief, based in Jakarta.
Nathan Vanderklippe is the Asia correspondent for The Globe and Mail. Based in Beijing, his reporting takes him across the region, where he covers political developments, social trends, international affairs, refugee crises, natural disasters and, occasionally, hockey games. He has spoken with political and business leaders, including Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, former president of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou, JD.com founder Richard Liu and many others. He served two terms on the board of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.
Prior to joining the Globe in 2009, VanderKlippe was a print and television correspondent in Western Canada based in Calgary, Vancouver and Yellowknife. He has covered Canada's energy industry, aboriginal issues and Canada’s north. His reporting has been recognized by the National Newspaper Awards, National Magazine Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists, Amnesty International, The Society of American Business Editors and Writers and The International China Journalists Association.
Yige Dong is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo.
Dr. Dong obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology at the Johns Hopkins University in 2019. Her research interests include feminist political economy, labor, gender relations, contentious politics, and comparative-historical methods. Her research has appeared in International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Critical Asian Studies, American Quarterly, and Modern China, and she is also serving on the editorial board of the Made in China Journal. Dr. Dong has been recipients of a number of awards and fellowships including the Woodrow Wilson National Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies, and the Junior Feminist Scholar Award from the Chinese Society for Women’s Studies, among others.
Mr Tom Orlik is Bloomberg’s Chief Asia Economist based in Beijing. He leads a team providing in-depth analysis of Asia macroeconomic data and policies, and how they will impact financial markets globally. His personal research is focused mainly on China.
Previously, Mr Orlik was the chief China economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, and China economist for Stone & McCarthy Research Associates. Prior to coming to China, he was an advisor to the UK Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund and policy analyst at the British Treasury. He is the author of Understanding China’s Economic Indicators, the definitive guide to working with China’s economic data.
Mr Orlik has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in English from University College London.
Hannah Zhang is an associate producer for CNN International, based in Beijing. Since embarking on her career in journalism in April 2019, Hannah has worked for Reuters as a breaking news intern in Beijing. After graduating from a master’s degree in business journalism, she then joined CNN Business in New York as a reporting intern, where she pitched and wrote business stories including market news, tech news, retail and consumer news. Hannah covered the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on mask manufacturers, medical suppliers, and luxury retailers. In the summer, she went back to Beijing and interned at Caixin Global, where she wrote news stories and news analyses about China’s tech giants and the emerging fintech industry. She also delivered research on Chinese financial policy and macroeconomics to domestic and foreign investors.
Besides CNN and Caixin, her words have also appeared on the South China Morning Post, Pandaily, Pavement Pieces, and The Economics Review at NYU.
William Vanbergen founded BE Education in 2003 with the aim of helping Chinese students gain access to top ranked international schools. A former pupil at Eton College, William has an intimate knowledge of international education. He designed BE Education’s proprietary summer programmes at Eton College and Charterhouse School and is responsible for the expansion of Wycombe Abbey International School in China. Under William’s leadership, BE Education has grown from a small education consultancy to the award-winning full-range education consulting services provider it is today.
Torsten Weller is business consultant and analyst at the China-Britain Business Council and graduate of Tsinghua University, who has had a multitude of experience in business development, startups and project management in China.
Jonathan E. Hillman is a senior fellow with the CSIS Economics Program and director of the Reconnecting Asia Project, one of the most extensive open-source databases tracking China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Hillman has testified before Congress, briefed government officials and Fortune 500 executives, and written on economics, national security, and foreign policy issues for the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other outlets. His first book, The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, is available to purchase in the UK.
Sir Christopher Hum, our Honorary President, was the British Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China between 2002 and 2005. A graduate from Pembroke College, Cambridge, he joined HM Diplomatic Service in 1967. Having studied Mandarin Chinese at the University of Hong Kong, 18 years of his career were spent working in or on China. In particular, Christopher was closely involved in the negotiations of the handover of Hong Kong to China in the 1980s and 1990s. His other diplomatic postings included the European Communities in Brussels, Paris, the United Nations in New York and Warsaw (as Ambassador from 1996 to 1998).
Jiwei Ci is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong and the author of Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis (2019), Moral China in the Age of Reform (2014), The Two Faces of Justice (2006), and Dialectic of the Chinese Revolution: From Utopianism to Hedonism (1994).
In Democracy in China (2019), Professor Ci discusses the spillover effect and the compensation effect as these intrapsychic mechanisms affect China’s democratic prospect, but only briefly and tangentially.
Tessa Keswick, author and policy-analyst, first traveled to China as a member of a trade mission in 1982. Through her encounters with the upper echelons of Chinese society alongside her husband Sir Henry Keswick, chairman of Hong Kong based conglomerate Jardine Matheson, she has enjoyed a unique perspective on China's development and the workings of its highest governing bodies. These experiences, as well as her extensive travels across the China over the past two decades, have been recounted in Lady Keswick's book , The Colour of the Sky After Rain, published in 2020.
Tessa's career is based in public policy and international affairs, particularly in Asia. She is the former Director of the Centre of Policy Studies and was, until 2017, its Deputy Chairman. She was the Special Policy Adviser to the Rt. Hon. Kenneth Clarke QC MP, working at the Departments for Health, Education and Science, the Home Office and HM Treasury. She previously worked in advertising and journalism. From 2013 to 2020 Tessa served as Chancellor of the University of Buckingham.
