This is a list of resources that I have found helpful for staying in touch with what’s happening in China (and here’s why I stay in touch with China), with a focus on tech. I should admit that I have been/am currently affiliated with many of the outlets mentioned below.

English-language resources

A biweekly podcast where GGV Capital managing partner Hans Tung and I interview movers and shakers of China’s tech industry as well as tech leaders with a US-China cross-border perspective. Past guests on the show include Jerry Yang (founder of Yahoo!), Andrew Ng (former chief scientist of Baidu), Kai-Fu Lee (former president of Google China), Liu Zhen (SVP of ByteDance/Toutiao), Nathan Blecharczyk (co-founder of Airbnb), Tao Zhang (founder of Dianping), and Lin Bin (co-founder of Xiaomi). Available on iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, SoundCloud, Google Play, XimalayaFM, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.

A weekly podcast hosted by Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn that covers current affairs in China, featuring interviews with journalists, writers, academics, policymakers, business people and other China experts. Kaiser is a rock star (both figuratively and literally).

A daily short newsletter that covers “what everyone in China knows and you still don’t.” Extremely entertaining and covers topics that you can never find elsewhere.

In my opinion the best English-language media outlet devoted to covering China. The subscription is worth it.

The Information uncovers trends and scoops you cannot find elsewhere, and its China coverage is incredibly strong. Shai Oster, Juro Osawa, and Yunan Zhang are amazing reporters who usually find out about things in China’s tech scene before others.

Reports on China’s consumer trends, with a focus on luxury brands.

Hong Kong’s English-language newspaper that covers Mainland China from across the water. It is owned by Alibaba.

An up-and-coming news site focused on China’s tech industry based in Hong Kong, published by the South China Morning Post.

Your window into China’s hottest deals.

TechCrunch’s China affiliate, featuring English articles and podcasts on tech in China.

A newsletter focusing on contemporary China’s social, cultural and business innovations. Features insightful deep-dives into hot topics that are under-covered in Western media, and curated by two women who are on the ground in China.

A site dedicated to translating Chinese tech news into English.

Media platform that covers the culture and innovation in contemporary China.

Hans Tung’s blog where he analyzes trends in tech and investments in China, on topics such as how Chinese startups should think about Alibaba and Tencent.

A documentary about Alibaba, with English subtitles.

Chinese-language resources

  • Largest tech media outlets in China:
    • 36氪 (WeChat: wow36kr)
    • 创业邦 (WeChat: ichuangyebang)
    • 虎嗅 (WeChat: huxiu_com)
    • 品玩 (WeChat: wepingwest)
    • i黑马 (WeChat: iheima)
    • 芥末堆 (For the education sector. WeChat: jiemoedu)
  • Independent journalists /in-depth reports
    • LateNews by 小晚 (in-depth interviews with movers and shakers of China’s tech industry by an experienced Caijing journalist, WeChat: latenews)
    • 新经济100人(WeChat: qiyejiagc)
    • 开柒 (WeChat: hlkaiba)
    • 雷建平 (Wechat: touchweb)
    • 王冠雄 (WeChat: wang-guanxiong)
  • Industry research reports: 
  • For viral  and entertaining content:
    • Papi (Wechat: dapapi)
    • 咪蒙 (WeChat: mimeng7)
    • 奇葩说 (WeChat: dongqimen)
  • Shark Tank of China:
  • Movies:
  • Documentary series:
    • 十年二十人 (China’s top business writer 吴晓波 interviews 20 executives who are shaping China’s tech industry, including Cheng Wei, Richard Liu, Neil Shen, and others)
    • 中国老总 (an in-depth documentary series, each episode featuring a deep dive into the life of a prominent business leader in China)
  • For understanding WeChat (WeChat’s equivalent of Apple’s WWDC or Google I/O):
    • 微信公开课  (Make sure to watch the keynote speech by WeChat founder Allen Zhang, the most-watched speech by the tech community in China. Every Chinese media outlet publishes the entire transcript each time he speaks)
  • Books
    • 《腾讯传》
    • 《阿里铁军》
    • 《创京东》
    • 《参与感》
    • 《海底捞你学不会》
    • 《运营之光》
    • 《沸腾十五年》
    • 《激荡三十年》
    • 《流量池》
  • Podcasts on XimalayaFM
    • 创业内幕 Startup Insider (Chinese podcast by GGV Capital where we interview Chinese founders and startup executives)
    • 吴晓波频道
    • 创新中国

China apps

Published by Zara Zhang

Zara Zhang works at ByteDance in its Beijing office. Previously, she was an investment analyst at GGV Capital (first in the Menlo Park office, then in the Beijing office), a venture capital firm that invests in companies in the US, China, and other emerging markets. She has interned as a reporter covering China’s tech industry for The Information. Her writings have been published on The Harvard Crimson, Harvard Magazine, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, and China Personified. She has also worked as a marketing intern at ZhenFund. Zara graduated from Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in psychology. At Harvard, she wrote and edited for The Harvard Crimson, led the organization of Harvard China Forum (a 1,000-people conference featuring leaders from China and the US), and ran a weekly newsletter about food around the university. Zara grew up in Changchun, a city in northeast China, and received her secondary education in Singapore. A language enthusiast, she is trained in Chinese-English interpretation and translation, speaks French and Japanese, and can sing in Cantonese. Zara co-hosted “996”, a podcast where she and GGV managing partner Hans Tung interviewed leaders in US-China cross-border tech and entrepreneurship. Listen on iTunes, Overcast, Spotify, SoundCloud, or search “996” in any podcast app.

2 thoughts on “How to Keep Up with What’s Happening in China”

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