Robert Kuhn

Kuhn was awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal by President Xi Jinping and Chinese leaders at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up (December 18, 2018). The medal, China’s highest award, honors 10 foreigners who facilitated China’s reform and opening up over the four decades. Five of the foreigners are living; Kuhn is one of two Americans. For 30 years, Kuhn, with his long-time partner Adam Zhu, has worked with China’s state leaders and advised the Chinese government.

During the 19th CPC National Congress (October 2017), Kuhn was interviewed extensively, including multiple times on CNN, BBC World News and BBC World Service, CGTN, and CCTV, and he was quoted extensively. His full-page, in-depth analyses of the 19th CPC National Congress were featured in China Daily to open the Congress ("Historical Starting Point for New Stage of Development") and to close the Congress ("New Era on the Road to 2050").

Kuhn provided the live commentary on CNN during President Xi Jinping's policy address in Seattle on September 2, 2015, during Xi's state visit to the US. Kuhn spoke at the launch ceremony of Xi's book, entitled Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 8, 2014.

Kuhn has written on President Xi Jinping's "core" status in the Communist Party of China ("Why China needs Xi Jinping as its core leader") and the elimination of term limits for China's presidency ("Xi Jinping's power has a purpose—one person to see China through its development plans").

He was a producer and actor, known for Texas Chainsaw (2013), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) and White Oleander (2002).

Kuhn advises and works with China leaders on special projects. When then-Vice President Xi visited the US in February 2012, Kuhn advised and gave commentaries and interviews. He advised Zhejiang Province for Zhejiang Party Secretary Xi's 2006 U.S. visit as well.

He was profiled in Barron's. He is one of the China Visionaries in the TV series produced for China's 60th anniversary by Shanghai Media Group (one of two Americans, along with Henry Kissinger) and he was featured on CCTV Channel 1's Focus Talk. Kuhn created, wrote and presented a six-episode series on Expo 2010 Shanghai, broadcast on CCTV. For the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, Kuhn co-produced (with Shanghai Media Group), wrote and presented a five-episode TV series, China's Challenges, on China's key domestic issues and problems that China's new leaders face. Kuhn was selected by Oriental Outlook magazine (published by Xinhua News Agency) as one of the all-time top-ten influential supporters of China's ruling party/CPC (the only one living).

He wrote The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin. It was the first biography of a living Chinese leader and was a best-seller in China in 2005. Kuhn is co-editor-in-chief of China's Banking & Financial Markets: The Internal Research Report of the Chinese Government.

Kuhn is chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, which disseminates understanding in science and philosophy, supports cultural endeavors and promotes good relations between America and China. The Foundation produces the Closer to Truth TV series. It also produced the documentary of his wife Dora Serviarian-Kuhn, Khachaturian, which won the Best Documentary award at the 2003 Hollywood Film Festival and (with China Central Television) In Search of China for PBS.

Several reviewers argue that Kuhn has obtained privileged access to China's leaders by refraining from critical comments, producing propaganda instead of serious works of non-fiction. A review in Foreign Affairs of Kuhn's The Man Who Changed China, a biography of Jiang Zemin, said it was actually better understood as an officially sanctioned autobiography, presenting an image that China's leaders want the world to see. Additionally, it said the writing of the book was, beginning in 2001, overseen by a secret state propaganda team. The Asian Review of Books said that the first part of this book was "close to hagiography". A review on the website of Forbes said his later book, How China's Leaders Think: The Inside Story of China's Past, Current and Future Leaders, was equally reluctant to criticize Hu Jintao, the leader who followed Jiang. The reviewer writes: "Kuhn merely repeats what the Communist Party says about itself and accepts its words at face value, taking obsequiousness to new heights."

He was president and co-owner of The Geneva Companies, then the largest mergers and acquisitions firm in the U.S., representing middle-market companies (sold to Citigroup in 2000).

From 1991 to 2001, Kuhn was president and co-owner of the Geneva Companies, a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) firm representing privately owned, middle-market companies. In 2000 Kuhn sold the Geneva Companies to Citigroup.

In 1989, he was invited to China by the director of the State Science and Technology Commission, Song Jian, whom Kuhn considers his mentor. Since then he has worked with China's senior leaders and advised the Chinese government on international, policy and business matters.

During the 1980s, Kuhn represented American and Japanese companies in mergers and acquisitions.

Kuhn first came to prominence in 1972 when "Why the Vast Difference between Animal Brain and Human Mind?" appeared in The Plain Truth magazine published by Ambassador College, an institution of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG). The WCG's Systematic Theology Project was coordinated by Kuhn, but later banned by WCG Founder Herbert W. Armstrong. Kuhn severed his connection to the WCG and its affiliates (1978), including the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (classical music concerts, featuring musicians including Vladimir Horowitz and Luciano Pavarotti), which Kuhn had created and managed.

Kuhn received a bachelor's degree in human biology from Johns Hopkins University (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1964, a PhD in anatomy and brain research from the University of California, Los Angeles' Brain Research Institute in 1968 and a master of science in management as a Sloan fellow from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1980.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (born 1944) is a public intellectual, international corporate strategist and investment banker. He has a doctorate in neuroscience and is the author and editor of over 25 books. He is a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal, China's highest award; he is a long-time adviser to China's leaders and the Chinese government, to multinational corporations on China strategies and transactions, and is a frequent commentator on the politics, economics, business, finance, philosophy and science of China. He is a columnist for China Daily and South China Morning Post and appears on the BBC, CNN, China Central Television, Bloomberg and other major media. Kuhn is the creator and host of the CCTV/CGTN News show Closer to China with R.L.Kuhn. Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of the public television series Closer to Truth, which presents scientists and philosophers discussing fundamental issues (cosmos, consciousness, philosophy/religion). His essays are featured on LiveScience.com and Space.com.

Robert Kuhn was born on September 4, 1936 in Dallas, Texas, USA.