China Dawn: Culture and Conflict in China's Business Revolution

What happens when 600 million Chinese get wired and become the world's largest group of Internet users? What happens when China's state-owned companies link up with the global marketplace? In answering these questions, journalist David Sheff goes into the trenches of the Chinese technology revolution and introduces the players who are leading China into the 21st century. Bo Feng, the former sushi chef who is now a leading venture capitalist, and Edward Tian, who has been dubbed China's Bill Gates, are some of the unlikely revolutionaries making history as they struggle to transform a nation. But presiding over all these developments in China is a repressive government caught between craving business dominance and fearing the results of giving its population uncensored information and a voice. In this compelling book, David Sheff provides an in-depth account of what is happening now with the tiger at the keyboard and a cautious prediction that, if caught within the World Wide Web, China may become a free market to be reckoned with globally. On a Sunday morning in early 2000, while loudspeakers on a passing advertising van pump out tinny jingles and a froggy computerized voice croaks, "Try Peace Cigarettes, fresh and fashionable," Edward Tian looks out on the arcing concrete-and-metal Lu Gouqiao Bridge on the outskirts of Beijing.