by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong
NEW YORK, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Rebecca A. Fannin's career began far from the high-voltage world of global technology. The small-town girl and graduate of Ohio University started out at a Dayton newspaper, then moved to New York City and eventually Silicon Valley, eventually contributing to CNBC and writing for Forbes and Harvard Business Review.
She decided to follow China's emerging tech scene long before "decoupling" and "de-risking" entered the U.S. policy lexicon. Fannin was on the ground in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, speaking with founders and venture capitalists. That reporting work produced a trilogy -- "Silicon Dragon," "Startup Asia," and "Tech Titans of China" -- chronicling China's entrepreneurial rise in real time, and from her perspective.
Her books were translated into multiple languages, including Chinese. Now, with a new edition of "Tech Titans of China," Fannin is telling a different story.
In her earlier works, she captured a period of unbounded ascent, and now she describes China's tech trajectory as "innovation under pressure" -- an ecosystem still advancing in key sectors, but increasingly shaped by geopolitics, such as mutual mistrust across the Pacific.
When "Silicon Dragon" was published in 2008, the idea that China could lead in technology was widely doubted in the West. China was seen as a manufacturing powerhouse, not an innovation hub.
The following decade overturned that assumption. Companies that Fannin tracked early -- Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance -- grew into global-scale platforms, reshaping how hundreds of millions lived, worked, and consumed. What began as fast-following, she argues, evolved into system-level innovation.
"It was a big shift in not a very long period of time, from whether China could even participate, to a place where its giants were setting the pace," Fannin told Xinhua in a recent interview.
By the time the first edition of "Tech Titans of China" appeared in 2019, that transformation was already evident. But the latest edition, launched in New York in January 2026, reflects a landscape that has shifted again. "So much has changed in six years," she said. "It's almost a totally different story."
Western debates about Chinese innovation often center on hardware and intellectual property. Fannin points instead to a different source of competitive strength: business model innovation combined with large-scale integration.
She highlighted e-commerce and fast-fashion platforms that compressed supply chains and feedback loops, social media and short-video ecosystems that redefined content distribution, digital payments and "super-apps" that leapfrogged cards and cash.
These systems were not mere copies of Silicon Valley. They were adapted to different user behavior, infrastructure constraints, and a massive, mobile-first population in China, she said.
"China's innovation in many sectors -- robotics, drones, batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), e-commerce -- is happening very rapidly," she said.
What has shifted is the direction of learning. She observed that whereas Chinese founders once studied Silicon Valley, U.S. companies are now quietly studying China -- particularly its approaches to monetization, user engagement, and ecosystem integration.
A central theme in Fannin's book is the entrepreneurial surge in China that took shape from the early 2000s and peaked around 2018, when, she believed, valuations, global expansion, and cross-border capital flows reached their peak.
Then the environment changed, she said. On the Chinese side, regulators tightened oversight of platform companies, data, and consumer Internet sectors. On the U.S. side, Washington imposed export controls and investment restrictions targeting semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and other advanced technologies.
Among the results, she noticed venture firms split their China and U.S. operations, weakening a key channel of exchange.
"That's a very big shift," Fannin commented, after which she said China entered a phase with capital increasingly directed toward strategic sectors such as AI and semiconductors. "It's more disciplined now."
Fannin believes her central argument -- innovation under pressure -- captures the dual forces reshaping China's tech ecosystem.
Externally, Chinese firms face export controls, investment barriers, and growing scrutiny in Western markets. Internally, they operate under strict regulation and evolving policy priorities, she said.
Yet these constraints, she added, have often intensified innovation rather than suppressed it.
Nowhere is this more visible than in semiconductors and AI. Cut off from the most advanced U.S. chips, Chinese companies are accelerating domestic development, exploring alternative architectures, and optimizing existing technologies. In AI, both major platforms and startups continue to invest heavily in models and applications, despite tighter capital conditions.
"Whenever you put pressure on something, it sharpens innovation," she said. "If you stay stagnant, you lose."
At the same time, Chinese firms are diversifying geographically -- expanding into Southeast Asia and the broader Global South, to seize growth opportunities.
Fannin identified EVs as a key arena of future tension. China already dominates large parts of the EV supply chain, from batteries to mid-range production.
In Western markets, debates over Chinese EVs combine climate goals, industrial policy, and data security concerns, she said. Europe has emerged as a major destination, Canada is opening its market, and the United States, by contrast, remains more restrictive.
However, "If our northern neighbor has Chinese EVs," Fannin said, "how much longer will it be before the U.S. allows them in?"
The answer will shape not only market competition, but also the next phase of disputes over connected vehicles and data governance, she further said.
Despite intensified focus on China in the West, understanding is deteriorating, Fannin remarked, noticing a widening knowledge gap.
"Many people have views on China without ever visiting China," she believes.
Her own solution is reporting from the ground. Across five books, she has relied on interviews with founders, investors, engineers, and policymakers, conducted in offices, industrial zones, and conference rooms across China and the United States.
"I'm not just following what Washington says, or what Silicon Valley says," she noted, adding that she believes in on-the-ground reporting about what's happening, and staying neutral as an observer.
"You're not supposed to be an opinion maker."
And through her "Silicon Dragon" events, Fannin continued to meet with entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers across borders. The aim is simple: replacing assumption with informed perspective.
"We try to enlighten people so that they're informed. Not just expressing opinions, but expressing knowledge." ■