Li Bin (who also goes by Brighten Li), founder of Wise Road Capital. Credit: JLQ Technology
These are turbulent times for China’s top semiconductor firms and financiers. Corruption probes launched in recent weeks have ensnared senior executives at some of China’s largest chip funds and firms, including the head of China’s giant state-backed chip investment fund and the ex-chief of Tsinghua Unigroup, China’s one-time leading chipmaker.
Against this backdrop, Wise Road Capital looks like a new favorite in China’s chip investment space. The Beijing-based private equity firm recently won a competitive bidding war to bail out Unigroup, becoming a key shareholder in the financially embattled conglomerate. It’s also embarked on some headline-grabbing deals overseas that dovetail with the Chinese government’s industrial policy objectives.
Yet little is known about the background of Wise Road, which was founded just six years ago. Its secrecy, as well as the opacity with which it conducts its deals, is arousing suspicion in international national security cir
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
When China announced it was ending quarantine requirements for incoming travelers, Chinese people collectively picked up their phones to search popular travel apps like Ctrip and Qunar. Owned by travel giant Trip.com, these apps helped Chinese travelers explore the world pre-pandemic and facilitated the human-to-human interactions that drove China's rise. But many of today's travelers seem to be sticking closer to home, and their hesitation to get back to the jetsetting habits of the past 20 years has far-reaching implications — especially for Trip.com.
The professor talks about China's real estate bubble; if China can develop a modern financial system without rule of law; and why it's not China that is reshaping the global order, but the world's response...
