Eric Li

Eric Li is a venture capitalist and political scientist. After studying economics and business at Berkeley and Stanford, he returned to China to complete a PhD in political science at Fudan University. Through his business and academic experiences, he became convinced that the notion that, in order to become a developed country, China must follow the path of Western liberal politics and capitalist economics, is misguided. In his lectures and his book Party Life: Chinese Governance and the World Beyond Liberalism (2023), he argues that the era of globalization is over, that Western liberal democracy has had its day, and that the Chinese model is a viable alternative. Li is chairman of the venture capital firm Chengwei Capital and chairman of the news outlet Guancha.cn. As a board member of universities in both China (Fudan) and the US (Stanford), and as a member of the Asia Society Hong Kong, Li is equally at home in both the academic and corporate world. He publishes regularly in newspapers and magazines such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist.