This talk will look at the history of foreign capital in the rise of China’s technology companies. Based on research by Prof. Malkin and his co-investigator Lisha Wang, it explains why foreign, particularly American, venture capital and stock markets were crucial for fostering the growth of Chinese internet, e-commerce, and, in recent years, a diverse array of different technology companies. This phenomenon reflected the centrality of US financial markets and China’s dependence on foreign finance more generally. In recent years, geopolitical, macroeconomic, and domestic regulatory issues have caused these trends to shift. Geopolitics have begun to derail the close-knit relationship between US capital and Chinese technology in very public ways, including the de-listing of various Chinese companies from US stock exchanges and the recent campaign to ban TikTok. However, as Prof. Malkin will show, this ‘decoupling’ comes at a time when Chinese firms are less dependent on US capital markets than they were in the past.
About the speaker
Anton Malkin is an Assistant Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. His research has been published in journals including Review of International Political Economy, Journal of Contemporary China, and Global Policy. He previously worked as a Research Fellow at CIGI and authored several research reports on trade and technology issues in China. HE is currently working on a book on foreign financial institutions in China. He received his PhD from the Balsillie School of International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier) in 2016. His co-investigator, Lisha Wang worked at various asset management firms including Blackrock, Wellington management company and Lazard asset management. She is currently a PhD student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen.
