Isaac Stone Fish is the founder and CEO of Strategy Risks, a company that quantifies and analyzes business’ exposure to China. Previously, he served as a Beijing correspondent for Newsweek before becoming Foreign Policy’s Asia editor. His journalism and commentary have appeared in CBS News, The Washington Post, Barron’s and more. His first book, America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger, was published in February and excerpted in The Wire.
Isaac Stone Fish.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: You started your China career as a literary agent. Was writing about China always the goal for you, or did you just want to be in China at the time?
A: I just wanted to be in China. I started going to China when I was 17. I spent a summer in Tibet with this program called "Where There Be Dragons." We were supposed to go to Sikkim and Bhutan, but India and Pakistan were near war. So they sent us to Tibet instead. The first time I went to China was in Xinjiang, so I s