James Kynge

James Kynge is Global China Editor at the Financial Times. The winner of the prestigious Harold Wincott award for journalism for his coverage of China and its complex relationship with rest of the world, he has spent two decades as a journalist in Asia.

After nine years at Reuters becoming Taiwan and Central Asia Bureau Chief, James spent over a decade covering China and the region for the Financial Times. As well as leading their emerging markets coverage, he also chairs FT Confidential Research, the research service providing data on China and southeast Asia and Latin America, which he founded.

James has spent almost half of the last thirty years working in China, including seven as the FT’s bureau chief in Beijing. His award-winning investigative articles have focused on China’s overseas investment push, its grand design to create a ‘New Silk Road’ between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, and the slow but steady integration between Chinese and global financial markets. As well as journalism he also headed up the business operations of the Pearson Group of companies in China.

During his time as a journalist, James covered many of the significant events that shaped the region - including the Japanese economic bubble and its deflation, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the independence of Mongolia, the rise to nationhood of the five former Soviet central Asian republics in the early nineties, the China-Taiwan missile crisis followed by Taiwan's first presidential election, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and China's emergence as a great economic power.

In his editorial and research roles, James looks at the forecasts for the Chinese economy and markets as well as the country’s role on the global stage and the often unreported detail of what’s happening on the ground. He’s also studied the Chinese consumer economy, the growth of the middle class, and the revolution that 415 million Chinese millennials might start.

James is the author of the bestselling award-winning book, China Shakes The World which describes the development of China as a superpower and has been translated into nineteen languages. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he is a regular commentator on Chinese and Asian issues for media outlets including NPR, CNN and the BBC.