Bill Bishop is an American who lived in Beijing from 2005-2015. He is the writer of the blogs Sinocism, where he collects links to news and interest pieces on China, and Digicha, where he writes about Chinese Internet and digital media. He is bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese and has experience working in both the U.S. and China.

Bishop co-founded CBS MarketWatch in 1997 and stayed until its sale in 2004 to Dow Jones. He has worked in several business roles over the years, the last as head of the MarketWatch consumer Internet business. He is currently an investor in and advisor to several start-up companies and provides China consulting services. Most recently, Bishop was CEO of Red Mushroom Studios, a Beijing-based developer and operator of online games.

Bishop formally studied Chinese language for six academic years and  has an M.A. in China Studies from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a B.A. from Middlebury College. He has lived and worked in China on and off for over eight years since 1989, and continuously in Beijing since mid-2005. He is often quoted in major media such as Bloomberg, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The New York Times, and other publications.

In addition to writing Sinocism and Digicha, Bishop, now living in Washington, D.C., is an active user of Twitter @niubi and Sina Weibo @billbishop. He was named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the top 100 foreign policy Twitterati and by Danwei as Twitter “Model Worker of the Year” for 2012.

Last Updated: April 1, 2021

Sinica Podcast

05.17.13

An Evening with Bill Bishop

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
This week, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome back Bill Bishop, the force behind the invaluable Sinocism newsletter and the man Evan Osnos once referred to as “the China watcher’s China watcher.” Starting with a look at Bill’s past and how he ended up in...

Conversation

04.11.13

Why Is Chinese Soft Power Such a Hard Sell?

Jeremy Goldkorn, Donald Clarke & more
Jeremy Goldkorn:Chairman Mao Zedong said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and he knew a thing or two about power, both hard and soft. If you have enough guns, you have respect. Money is the same: if you have enough cash, you can buy guns...

Conversation

03.08.13

Will China’s Property Market Crash, and So What If It Does?

Dorinda Elliott & Bill Bishop
Dorinda Elliott:At this week’s National People’s Congress, outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao proclaimed that the government kept housing prices from rising too fast. Really? I wonder what my 28-year-old Shanghainese friend Robert thinks about that. He and...

Sinica Podcast

02.21.13

Death, Fraud, and Corporate Skullduggery

Kaiser Kuo & Bill Bishop from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we talk shop about Caterpillar’s discovery of massive accounting fraud and subsequent $580 million write-down from a Chinese company the American equipment manufacturer acquired. We also look at the mysterious death of an...

Conversation

02.20.13

Cyber Attacks—What’s the Best Response?

James Fallows, Xiao Qiang & more
With regular ChinaFile Conversation contributor Elizabeth Economy on the road, we turned to her colleague Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Segal said that “the time for...

Conversation

02.01.13

China’s Cyberattacks — At What Cost?

James Fallows, Donald Clarke & more
James Fallows: Here are some initial reactions on the latest hacking news.We call this the “latest” news because I don’t think anyone, in China or outside, is actually surprised. In my own experience in China, which is limited compared with many of...

Sinica Podcast

06.03.11

Water on the Brink

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
As the southern Yangtze region struggles with its worst drought in a century, China’s grand plans for water diversion projects and its Three Gorges Dam have come under renewed scrutiny, as have expectations Beijing can maintain economic stability...

Sinica Podcast

04.22.11

China’s Second Internet Bubble?

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Interest in Chinese Internet companies has reached a fever pitch. Fueled by the fact that roughly fifty percent of the companies that went public on NASDAQ last year were Chinese in origin, at least seventeen more high-profile companies are planning...

Sinica Podcast

04.01.11

Scandal in Baidu and Chongqing

Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
A year after our first show memorialized Google’s retreat from the China market, our first anniversary sees Sinica host Kaiser Kuo and his employer on the defensive as Gady Epstein and Bill Bishop grill Kaiser over recent allegations of copyright...

Sinica Podcast

01.21.11

Hu Jintao and the Washington Summit

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
As part of our ongoing efforts to secure the hottest scoops for you, our Sinica team originally planned to storm Hu Jintao’s flight to Washington and record a live podcast with everyone’s favorite chairman during his flight across the Pacific. Sadly...

Sinica Podcast

09.24.10

Attack of the China Bears

Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
As the American economy teeters on the brink of a double-dip recession, “China Bear” sightings have increased significantly. A loosely-knit group of economists and critics who see storm clouds looming over the Chinese economy, China Bears have a...

Sinica Podcast

08.20.10

China’s Troubled Waters

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Are Chinese-American maritime relations running aground? The recent sinking of the South Korean corvette the Cheonan, most likely by China’s unruly client state North Korea, has led to the U.S.S. George Washington participating in naval exercises...