About ANBOUND

ANBOUND

ANBOUND, also known as the Anbound Research Center and Anbound Consulting (安邦咨询), is a multinational independent think tank headquartered in Beijing, China. Founded in 1993 as Anbound Consulting Company (Beijing), it has operated for more than three decades as a commercial, independent research organisation specialising in public policy. Its founder and chief researcher is Chan Kung, also rendered in Chinese as Chen Gong and in some of the organisation's own English-language material as Kung Chan. From its Beijing base, ANBOUND built a reputation for forward-looking judgements, risk warnings and strategic forecasts supplied to government bodies, financial institutions and corporate clients in China and abroad, and it remains one of the longest-lived examples of the corporate-legal-entity model among Chinese think tanks.

Founding in 1993 and the Role of Chan Kung

ANBOUND was founded in 1993, at a moment when China's market reforms were deepening and demand for independent policy analysis outside the state research system was only beginning to emerge. Its founder, Chan Kung, established the firm as Anbound Consulting Company in Beijing and has remained its chief researcher and public face ever since. Chan Kung is described in biographical profiles as one of China's renowned experts in information analysis, with most of his academic research activity concentrated in economic information analysis and particularly in public policy. He is also a regular opinion columnist and commentator, contributing analysis to international media; ANBOUND's own site records, for example, a 2023 interview with BBC News Chinese in which he discussed balancing professionalism and responsibility, and notes that BBC journalists regarded ANBOUND as a fact-based analytical organisation whose perspective offered valuable insight into the real China. That founder-centred identity — a think tank closely identified with one chief researcher's method and voice — has shaped ANBOUND throughout its history.

An Independent, Multinational Think Tank

ANBOUND consistently describes itself as a multinational independent think tank from China, and classification studies of the Chinese think tank landscape place it among the corporate legal entity think tanks — organisations registered as enterprises that specialise in policy research and consulting, alongside peers such as the Pangoal Institution, the Grandview Institution and the Taihe Institute in that taxonomy. Independence in this context means the organisation is not a ministry institute, a university unit or a Party academy; it earns its place by selling research and advice. ANBOUND says it has served the Communist Party's central financial and economic leading group and provided research to government agencies and financial institutions. Thousands of customers, in its own account, have drawn on its judgements over the years, and its research is presented as a public product contributing to Chinese society as well as a commercial service.

Research Fields: Geopolitics, Cities, Industry and Macroeconomics

The organisation's stated specialisms cover four broad fields: geopolitics and international relations; urban and social development; industrial issues; and macroeconomics. That breadth is visible in its published output. Its researchers have written on the economic impact of the United States–China trade war, concluding in 2018 analysis that the trade war's impact on China was limited in purely trade terms but greater in the financial sector; on China's economic resilience and elasticity during the COVID-19 shock in 2020, when Chan Kung argued that the first-quarter data, though sharply negative, reflected the resilience provided by essential consumption and continuously operating infrastructure; on the role of a booming capital market in China's future economic and social stability; on effective investment under complex conditions; and on Hong Kong's status as a financial centre. In 2024, Chan Kung argued that China needed to develop what he called "systematic manufacturing" to strengthen its competitiveness as companies relocated production. The range — from debt and treasury bond policy to manufacturing strategy and regional development — reflects an institute organised around macroeconomic and public policy questions rather than a single sector.

The "Tracking Research" System

ANBOUND's most distinctive methodological claim is its "tracking research" system. In a 2019 account marking its 26th year, the organisation explained that its research system is often called a tracking system, and that the difference between ANBOUND and more conventional research or academic institutions lies in paradigm and information thinking: daily reports and professional analyses are usually, in its view, the product of paradigm thinking, whereas ANBOUND's research is the product of information thinking. Tracking research involves integrating and defining effective information, locating new dynamic logic paths within it, and thereby generating forecasts. ANBOUND says it maintains a complete set of thought-training methods to improve its scholars' analytical ability, tested over 25 years. Whether or not outside readers accept the terminology, the emphasis explains the organisation's output style: continuous monitoring of policy and economic signals, short analytical products, and explicit forecasts and risk warnings intended for decision-makers rather than academic journals.

Offices in China and Research Operations Overseas

From Beijing, ANBOUND expanded to seven local offices in China — Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chongqing and Urumqi — giving it a presence in the country's major economic regions, from the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas to the west and Xinjiang. It also developed overseas research operations, notably in ASEAN and Malaysia. When the data provider FactSet integrated ANBOUND's research in 2012, coverage of the deal noted that the content would include regionally focused material developed by ANBOUND's research centre in Malaysia and a future operations base in Africa. This footprint underpins the "multinational" element of its self-description: an organisation that tracks Chinese policy from inside the country while maintaining listening posts in Southeast Asia for clients concerned with China's outward economic engagement.

The FactSet Partnership of 2012

In September 2012, the United States financial data provider FactSet integrated ANBOUND's macroeconomic and public policy research into its platform, under an agreement reported by WatersTechnology on 7 September 2012. The agreement provided FactSet clients with ANBOUND's analysis of mainland China's macroeconomy and public policy, together with regional content from its Malaysia research centre. Commenting on the deal, founder Chen Gong said ANBOUND offered clients facts and comprehensive analysis of China's economy, that it was pleased to contribute its expertise to governments and companies at home and abroad, and that it looked forward to a win-win result from the content partnership. For a Chinese independent think tank, distribution through a global financial data platform was a significant step: it placed ANBOUND's Beijing-based analysis in front of international investors and institutions as a commercial data product, not merely as commentary.

Clients and Public Policy Influence

ANBOUND says its clients have included the Communist Party's central financial and economic leading group, government agencies and financial institutions, alongside thousands of other customers. Its suggestions have sometimes been strikingly specific: in 2018, for example, Chan Kung suggested that the central government could consider large-scale treasury bond issuance to systematically alleviate debt and development constraints, with ANBOUND's rough estimation putting the scale of a thorough solution at RMB 30 trillion to 50 trillion of additional debt. Such interventions illustrate the organisation's working model — using its tracking research to put quantified, forward-looking proposals into public and policy debate. Its researchers have likewise commented on United States economic recovery, capital markets and industrial policy, positioning ANBOUND as an interpreter of both Chinese policy for the world and world developments for Chinese decision-makers.

The August 2022 Zero-COVID Report

ANBOUND drew international attention in August 2022 with a report titled "It's Time for China to Adjust Its Virus Control and Prevention Policies." In a rare public disagreement with the ruling Communist Party's severe zero-COVID policy, the Anbound Research Center said curbs that shut down cities and disrupted trade, travel and industry had to change to prevent an "economic stall," and that preventing the risk of an economic stall should be the priority task, with the government needing to focus on shoring up sinking growth. The report, dated Sunday, was posted on ANBOUND's accounts on WeChat and the Sina Weibo microblog service, but was deleted from both on Monday afternoon. International coverage, including reporting syndicated in August 2022, underlined how unusual such a public call was from a Chinese think tank — and the deletion underlined the sensitivities involved. The episode became the most widely reported moment in ANBOUND's history outside China.

ANBOUND in China's Think Tank Landscape

Within studies of Chinese think tanks, ANBOUND is a reference case for the commercial, independent end of the spectrum. The Center for China and Globalization's Global Think Tanks (2.0) taxonomy lists ANBOUND among corporate legal entity think tanks, and data platforms such as CB Insights catalogue the ANBOUND Research Center as an independent think tank founded in 1993 in Beijing specialising in geopolitics and international relations, urban and social development, industrial issues and macroeconomics. Its longevity matters to that status: founded the same year as other pioneering independent institutes of the early 1990s, it survived the successive tightening cycles that closed or constrained other independent voices, continuing to publish under its founder's name into the 2020s — including website material carrying a 2012–2026 copyright line. Its official website is anbound.com.

Continuing Work and Significance

ANBOUND's continuing significance lies in what it demonstrates about the space for independent policy research in China. It is neither a state academy nor a university centre, yet it reports serving the Party's central financial and economic leading group; it sells research commercially, yet describes that research as a public product; it is based in Beijing, yet distributes through FactSet and maintains research operations in Malaysia. Its tracking research method, its seven-office domestic network, its 2012 international data partnership and its willingness — most visibly in August 2022 — to publish uncomfortable macroeconomic warnings together explain why ANBOUND is routinely cited, more than thirty years after its founding, as one of China's most durable independent think tanks.