Before co-founding fintech group PingPong in 2015, Ning Wang spent five years of his life working for PayPal, first in San Jose and later in Shanghai where he headed the payment group’s finance division for China. The experience convinced him that mainland Chinese tech start-ups would quickly leapfrog their American counterparts.
“Chinese entrepreneurs are more aggressive,” said the executive, who is now based in Hangzhou. “Companies don’t move fast enough in the US. And the capital markets give too much slack to start-ups.”
Today, part of the US backlash against China is based on the fact that the country has rigged the tech game — through closing its market to foreign players in numerous sectors, or requiring them to hand over critical technology to their local partners, or stealing it outright. Many US politicians and executives believe that if China had a level and open playing field, the landscape would look very different.