The Hong Kong-based weekly news magazine is circulated in 15 countries and has a staff of 30. It is the first Asian English-language news magazine launched in 30 years. He has been a foreign correspondent for 25 years including 17 years based in Beijing and written three books on China, one on North Korea and another on Mongolia. They have been translated into seven languages. His latest, City of Heavenly Tranquility, is a history of Beijing which Penguin (UK) is launching in June 2008. Oxford University Press (USA) is releasing it in July. He is also the managing director of Legend Strategic Consultancy, a corporate consultancy on China.

He started his career working in Brussels, Geneva and Frankfurt for The Associated Press. From 1985-1992, he worked for The Guardian newspaper and reported from Beijing from 1985 to 1989. The paper nominated him as foreign correspondent of the year for his coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. At the BBC World Service, he was the Asian Affairs Analyst based in London and traveled throughout Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. His first book about the fate of the Mongols, The Lost Country, is being reissued in 2008 as Mongolia: Travels in an Untamed Land. .

From 1995-2002, he was Beijing Bureau Chief of Hong Kong's English-language South China Morning Post (SCMP). From 2002-2005, he was the China correspondent for The Independent. He contributed features to Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Marie Claire and other magazines and op-ed commentaries to the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Spectator, The New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Irish Times, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Australian Financial Review, the London Review of Books, the TLS and others.

Every month Jasper Becker speaks at two or three conferences and executive briefings. He has often been interviewed by the BBC World Service, CNBC, NBC, ABC AP-TV, Reuters TV, 60 Minutes, Nightline, Radio France International, Sky News, ITN, ARD TV, Deutsche Welle, South Korea's KBS. He has appeared in documentaries for CBS's Sixty Minutes, Canadian television, ABC's Nightline Josh Gerstein (2002), Ted Koppel (1998), Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer (1997) and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. In addition to taking part in documentaries on China, he has written and presented 30 radio programmes on China, the Soviet Union and Central Asia for the BBC. In May 2002, he gave evidence about North Korea at a hearing held by the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, and has given talks to the US Council for International Relations, and other venues

His book Hungry Ghosts, the first account of China's Great Leap Forward famine (1958-62) won the 4th PIOOM Foundation Award for a work on major human rights abuses. Articles on North Korea won the Kilpatrick Award for Human Rights and Children and coverage of the Falun Gong crackdown the Hong Kong Human Rights Press Award.

A British citizen, born London 19.5.56 and married with three children aged 9, 7 and 2, he speaks French, German and Chinese. Educated at Mill Hill School, London University, Goldsmith's College, Munich University, he also has a diploma in Modern Chinese from London University.

What the Press is saying:

Vividly illustrated with photographs that capture the paradox of an ancient culture remaking itself into a dynamic consumer society, Dragon Rising is a wonderfully written, well-rounded, wide-ranging portrait of China's problems and prospects.

"reads brilliantly a must for anyone who wants an informed account of what's really going on." The Times (London)

Los Angeles Times Becker writes from the viewpoint of the Chinese peoplehe evaluates China on its own terms he has transcended the obstacles of early books and come up with an enduring portrait of modern China

Los Angeles Times Book of the Year

Wall Street Journal No one has done a more meticulous, enlightening job of enshrouding the facts than Jasper Becker, a British journalist who really knows China. In his poignant and searing detailed account of the famine, Mr. Becker reminds us of a political time bomb ticking in the heart of the New China Mr Becker does what others have failed to do: He assigns blame.

London Review of Books Becker does a good job of putting a human face on the famine. Some of the anecdotes on Becker's book are testament to the almost unimaginable resilience of the human mind, an unforgettable book.

Far Eastern Economic Review: Becker gives us a tour de force of research, uncovering what has been an official secret in China. Becker has written a book that anyone interested in China should read. He not only provides crucial information about China's secret famine, he offers persuasive evidence that the Great Leap planted the seeds for an ensuing catastrophe, the Cultural Revolution.

Futures, Leadership, Political, Economy