About the seminar

As China's Internet population surges towards the half billion mark—double the United States—how are U.S. Internet companies faring in China? Google, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo and others have all faced challenges in China. These include external (competition, regulation/censorship) and internal (management, strategy). Can these firms find a viable position in China? Will emerging players such as Groupon fare any better? Although U.S. Internet companies have struggled, U.S. institutional investors have reaped rich rewards from stakes in leading Chinese firms such as Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba/Taobao. Is this approach a better bet than hoping that U.S. firms gain a foothold in China? If leading Chinese Internet firms continue to dominate their home market, do they stand a chance to succeed internationally including through expansion or M&A in the US?

About the Speaker

Duncan Clark is Chairman of BDA China, a company he founded in Beijing in 1994. Previously, Duncan was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in London and Hong Kong, where he focused on telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) transactions.

He has guided BDA to become the leading consultancy servicing participants and investors in the TMT sectors in China and India. With a team of over 50 in Beijing and an office of 15 in New Delhi (opened in 2006), BDA has in recent years added to TMT an advisory capacity serving leading private equity firms investing in other fast-growing sectors in these countries such as education, retail and alternative energy.

Clark holds a B.Sc degree in economics with honors from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and currently chairs the school's alumni group in China. A UK citizen, Clark was raised in the UK, the United States and France.

Media X is the partner of this seminar.

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Lee Kong Chian was among the most influential Chinese entrepreneurs in the Asian diasporic landscape from the 1920s to 1960s. In 1903, as a young boy, he migrated from China to then-British Singapore. He went on to build a formidable plantation-based business empire. Known in his heyday as Southeast Asia’s “Rubber King” and “Pineapple King,” he left profound imprints on business, education, and philanthropy that can still be felt in the region today.

Lee Kong Chian lived through tumultuous times: the rise of Chinese nationalism, World War II, British decolonization, independent state formation, and the Cold War. Different impressions of him have been produced and projected at different times in different places: as “a leading capitalist and philanthropist in Nanyang,” “a representative patriot of the Chinese Diaspora,” and “a virtuous pioneer in the revised national history template.” After reviewing these images, Prof. Huang will move “beyond representation” to explore less well-known aspects of Lee’s life including the nature of his economic empire and the political sensitivity of his position at a time when the sun was setting over the British empire.

Huang Jianli is an associate professor in the Department History at the National University of Singapore and a research associate in the university’s East Asian Institute. His many publications include The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (2008), Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order (co-edited, 2003) and Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas (co-edited, 2002). Recent journal articles include “Umbilical Ties: The Framing of Overseas Chinese as the Mother of Revolution” (2011), “Portable Histories in Mobile City Singapore: The (Lack)lustre of Admiral Zheng He” (2009), “Chinese Diasporic Culture and National Identity: The Taming of the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore” (2007), and “Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw” (2006). Further details including contact information are accessible at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/hishjl.