Jasper Becker

Publisher, Asia Weekly

Jasper Becker is the publisher of Asia Weekly magazine — the only news magazine devoted to Asia — and has worked as a correspondent for over 21 years. He is also the managing director of Legend Strategic Consultancy, which provides international companies with information on China.

He has written six books, the most recent being City Of Tranquility, which was released in June 2008. His work has been translated into seven languages.

Mr. Becker started his career in Brussels and worked for the Associated Press in Geneva and Frankfurt. He later joined The Guardian and reported from Beijing 1985 to 1989. After the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations for which the paper nominated him as Foreign Correspondent of the Year, he returned to London. Several years later he left The Guardian and joined the BBC World Service as the Asian Affairs Analyst. Until May 2002, he was Beijing Bureau Chief of Hong Kong’s English-language South China Morning Post.

A British citizen, Mr. Becker was born in London May 19, 1956. He obtained a BA degree at Goldsmith’s College in the University of London. He also studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and later obtained a post-graduate diploma in modern Chinese from the University of London. In addition to Chinese, he speaks French and German.