China's Business Frontier
A Business & Economics Field Programme
Programme Overview
Duration
7 Days · 6 Nnights
Route
Shanghai → Hangzhou
Highlight
1 China Macroeconomy Briefing
4 Future-Facing Industry Visits
4 Founders/Executives Conversation
3 Iconic Cultural and hands-on Experiences
Why This Programme
China is one of the clearest real-world case studies for Business and Economics students: rapid development, state-directed capitalism, advanced supply chains, digital commerce, and global market power all operating within one country.
From poverty reduction and manufacturing scale to livestream commerce, EVs, platforms, and consumer ecosystems, this programme helps participants move beyond textbook theory and see how economic transformation works in practice.
What We Do
A business-focused field programme across Shanghai and Hangzhou, exploring how China’s digital platforms, frontier technologies, consumer markets, and cultural economy shape modern business strategy.
Through 4 Academic Workshops and 4 Industry Visits, participants examine AI at SenseTime, EV business models at NIO, platform strategy at Alibaba, and neurotechnology at BrainCo — while connecting these company visits with Shanghai’s urban economy and Hangzhou’s heritage-led innovation.
Key Takeaways
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A deeper understanding of China’s economy, growth trajectory and industrial policy.
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First-hand case study of AI, digital platforms, EVs, and emerging industries.
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Analytical frameworks for reading unfamiliar markets about how to assess competitive environments and identify government influence.
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Cross-cultural confidence that only comes from direct engagement with industry insiders.
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Career opportunities strengthened by experience most of your peers don’t have.
Shanghai
China's most international city and its largest financial hub. Shanghai provides the commercial frame — scale, market access, urban infrastructure, and the global business context through which most international companies first encounter China.
Destinations
Hangzhou
A UNESCO World Heritage city and the birthplace of China's digital economy. Home to Alibaba — the company that built China's platform commerce infrastructure from the ground up. Students encounter how digital markets, cross-border trade, and platform strategy operate at national scale.
Industry Access
Sense Time
(AI)
See how AI powers everything from smart cities and autonomous driving to generative AI. SenseTime offers a window into how China is turning cutting-edge research into real-world products and services at scale.
NIO
(EV)
Swap a depleted battery for a fully charged one in just a few minutes, instead of waiting hours to recharge. NIO shows how China is rethinking EV infrastructure, ownership, and customer convenience at scale.
A direct look at one of the companies that helped build China’s digital economy at scale, from platform commerce to cloud and cross-border infrastructure. It helps explain how China built one of the world’s most complete platform ecosystems.
Alibaba
(Cloud/Platforms)
BrainCo
(Neurotech)
A frontier company turning brain–computer interface research into real products, from neuro-controlled devices to rehabilitation tools. A rare example of advanced science moving quickly toward everyday commercial use.
Alternatives: Deep Robotics - Explore how AI-powered quadruped robots are transforming inspection, logistics, and industrial operations in challenging environments.
Itinerary
SHANGHAI
Welcome Dinner & Free time
A welcome dinner followed by optional evening walk along the Bund
Programme Briefing
Short orientation session outlining the journey, logistics, and experience flow.
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Guardians of the Plateau
China, the world's largest clean energy investor and its largest coal consumer. This programme puts students inside that contradiction — the world's most consequential live case study in sustainability, industrial policy, and ecological complexity
[ESG / Environment / Energy Transition / Ecology]
12 DAYS · 11 NIGHT
CHENGDU · QINGHAI PROVINCE
Technology & Innovation in China
See how ideas scale into real industrial ecosystems. Robotics, EVs, smart manufacturing, and applied AI — not as theoretical concepts, but as operating systems running at China's speed and density.
[Robotics / Engineering / Manufacturing / AI]
7 DAYS · 6 NIGHT
BEIJING · SHENZHEN
Modern Living in China
Understand Chinese society as it actually is — how history, government, family, commerce, and urban life interact to produce a civilisation unlike any other. This is a unique social system learning opportunity.
[Society / Urban Life / Culture / Systems]
14 DAYS · 13 NIGHT
BEIJING · HANGZHOU · SHANGHAI
China's Creative Odyssey
Design reflects how a society thinks about space, status, memory, and modernity. Students learn to read China's visual culture — from ancient craft to contemporary art and digital design — as a record of civilisation in motion, not a catalogue of aesthetic styles.
[Art / Design / Architecture / Cultural System]
14 DAYS · 13 NIGHT
BEIJING · HANGZHOU · SUZHOU · SHANGHAI