Keyu Jin

Keyu Jin was born in 1982 and comes from Beijing.⁠[1]

She recalled that in her early childhood Beijing had few goods, eggs were bought with vouchers and there were often three or four blackouts a week; every day she rode on the back of her father’s bike to nursery at 6 a.m., and neighbours were close.⁠[2]

By her own account, she went to an American high school on a scholarship and lived with an American host family; she said that at 14 she found Americans’ understanding of China simplistic and resolved to dispel such myths.⁠[2]

She received a BA from Harvard College in 2004, an MA from Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 2006 and a PhD in economics in 2009.⁠[3]

In September 2009 she became a lecturer in economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and was a tenured associate professor there from January 2013 to August 2024.⁠[3]

In 2012 she published “Industrial Structure and Capital Flows” in the American Economic Review, arguing that capital tends to flow to countries becoming more specialised in capital-intensive industries, a composition effect that can counter the standard pull of capital toward where it is scarce, and using this to explain current account imbalances between developing and developed countries.⁠[4]

In 2017 she was appointed a non-executive director of the luxury group Richemont and became a member of its Compensation and Nominations Committees.⁠[1]

On May 26, 2019, she gave the lecture “China in the Age of Globalization” in the Fudan University–London School of Economics lecture series, discussing the global impact of China’s development over four decades; the organisers noted that she had worked at the World Bank, the International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution conceived at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, whose Articles entered into force in 1945 and which began operations on March 1, 1947; headquartered in Washington, it has 191 member countries and has been led by Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva since October 2019.Open the full entry and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and had written columns for the Financial TimesFinancial TimesThe Financial Times (FT) is a London-based English-language business and financial news organization, known for its salmon-pink newspaper and its motto “Without Fear and Without Favour.” It was owned successively by the British Pearson group and Japan’s Nikkei Inc., and today digital subscriptions are its main source of revenue.Open the full entry and other outlets.⁠[5]

From November 2021 she served as an independent non-executive director of Qingdao AInnovation Technology Group Co., Ltd.⁠[6]

From April 2022 to June 2023 she was a non-executive director of Credit Suisse Group AG.⁠[1]

In October 2022 she published the opinion piece “How China Is Fighting the Chip War with America” in The New York Times, describing the battle for technological superiority between the United States and China as the ultimate competition between two radically different systems.⁠[7]

On May 16, 2023, Viking published her book The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism, a 368-page hardcover.⁠[8]

Reviewer James Herndon summarised that she attributes China’s sustained growth to a series of responses to circumstances rather than a master plan, divides Reform and Opening into four phases and argues that local officials compete for private firms much like their counterparts elsewhere.⁠[9]

In June 2023 she attended the World Economic Forum’s 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin; in an interview she argued that economies should emphasise cooperation rather than deglobalisation or de-risking and said China could act as a global financial stabiliser in the future.⁠[10]

On November 24, 2023, Jardine Matheson Holdings announced that she would join its board as an independent non-executive director from January 31, 2024; the announcement said she was a member of China Finance 40 and of the economic council of the State of Qatar.⁠[6]

In March 2024 Yasheng Huang, a professor at MIT Sloan, reviewed the book in Foreign Policy; he credited her rebuttal of the notion that China is a mere copycat but called its overall tone “mistakenly celebratory,” said it gave too little attention to the reliability of China’s GDP data, argued that her “mayor economy” thesis is contradicted by evidence that state-owned enterprises are less productive, and said it ignored rural education and health care.⁠[11]

On August 13, 2025, she appeared on episode 477 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, which introduced her as an economist specialising in China’s economy, international macroeconomics, global trade imbalances and financial policy; topics included misconceptions about China, Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, the “mayor economy,” DeepSeek, tariffs and trade, Taiwan and the one-child policy.⁠[12]

In September 2025 she became a professor of finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.⁠[3]

She is also a Research Chair at the HKUST Institute for Financial Research, which notes that she has worked with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the China Banking Regulatory Commission.⁠[13]

As of October 2026 her official website says she is based between London and Hong Kong.⁠[14]

Personal website: Public link: https://www.keyujin.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

X: Public account: https://x.com/KeyuJin (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

HKUST: Official website: https://hkust.edu.hk/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

Richemont: Official website: https://www.richemont.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]