Wednesday 8 May 2024
07:45
Duncan Clark OBE
A Tale of Two Cities: Tokyo Boom, Beijing Gloom
After three decades of deflation and stagnation, Japan is showing new signs of vigour, including price and wage hikes and a stock market hitting heights not seen since the late 1980s. Meanwhile China is experiencing a ‘Japanication’, with deflation, massive debt overhang from a real estate crisis and drops in FDI, employment and consumer sentiment not to mention trade and geo-political friction with the U.S. With an aging and shrinking population, is China headed for its own lost decades? Can Japan shake off its past and sustain its current recovery?
Duncan is Chairman of BDA, an Asia-focused investment advisory firm he founded in 1994 after four years as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. From his home in Tokyo, Duncan draws on his three decades advising investors in technology and innovation to assess the impact of the fast growing geopolitical fault lines distancing China from many of its traditional trading partners. Duncan’s 2016 book ‘Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built’ chronicled the rise of China’s Internet sector and entrepreneurial class and was named a Book of the Year by The Economist and short-listed for Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times/McKinsey. The dramatic, government-led crackdown on Jack Ma from late 2020 heralded a new, troubled era for China’s private sector and consumer economy. Recently appointed to the board of councillors of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Duncan is a founding member of Asia Society Japan and a global trustee of the Asia Society. Duncan is an early-stage investor in Silicon Valley ventures including Data.ai and StoryProtocol.xyz (invested by a16z).
Duncan is Chairman of BDA, an Asia-focused investment advisory firm he founded in 1994 after four years as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. From his home in Tokyo, Duncan draws on his three decades advising investors in technology and innovation to assess the impact of the fast growing geopolitical fault lines distancing China from many of its traditional trading partners. Duncan’s 2016 book ‘Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built’ chronicled the rise of China’s Internet sector and entrepreneurial class and was named a Book of the Year by The Economist and short-listed for Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times/McKinsey. The dramatic, government-led crackdown on Jack Ma from late 2020 heralded a new, troubled era for China’s private sector and consumer economy. Recently appointed to the board of councillors of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Duncan is a founding member of Asia Society Japan and a global trustee of the Asia Society. Duncan is an early-stage investor in Silicon Valley ventures including Data.ai and StoryProtocol.xyz (invested by a16z).
