Money and knowledge from China helped build India’s tech giants, before geopolitics intervened.

This report traces the Indo-China economic relationship that flourished for nearly half a decade before the deadly border clashes in 2020. It unpacks the adverse impact of India's sudden nationalist turn, an incident that kicked out Chinese investors, banned 300-odd Chinese apps including TikTok, and how American investors came to the rescue of capital-starved Indian startups.

I documented the journey of Hanson Hu, the sole Chinese VC to not only invest heavily in India, but also relocated to Bangalore in 2019 to forge deeper relations with Indian startups. Then in 2020, geopolitical tension led to the unprecedented crackdown on Chinese tech forcing Hu to flee India. It took months of convincing for Hu to participate in an on-record interview amidst geopolitical unease and distrust.

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