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Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu.

Every episode I'll be talking to experts, journalists and longtime China watchers

about the country's politics, society and more.

There'll be a smattering of history to catch you up on the background knowledge

and some contextualization.

How do the Chinese see these issues?

So I hope you'll join me every other Monday.

It wasn't long ago when the Chinese lived in communes and their workplaces provided stronger personal ties than their families did.

But that approach improverished a post-colonial post-war China even more.

Then in the 1980s, then-leader Dan Xiaoping began a process of so-called reform and opening,

encouraging private enterprise and dialing back the hand of the state.

Today, private firms, especially those in cutting-edge technology,

are some of the largest companies in China.

But with concerns over Huawei and now TikTok, how private and independent are these companies?

My guest today is Duncan Clark, who has been in China since the 1990s.

He set up a business there advising Western investors on where to put their money in China.

And he's also the author of Alibaba, the house that Jack Ma built, a biography written from his time spent with until recently the richest man in China, Jack Ma, who founded the Chinese equivalent of Amazon.

So, Duncan, you've been in and out of China for such a long time. Can you give us an

idea of what the business environment was like for entrepreneurs back in the 90s?

...