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Imagine living through the breakthrough
moments of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the other icons of
today's new economy. The kind of technological revolution
that they led in Silicon Valley is now sweeping through
China, but with much more dramatic implications. The dynamic
entrepreneurs who are using technology to radically transform
business and cultural life in China are fighting not only
outdated business models and a tumultuous economy but also
an unpredictable government that has a love-hate relationship
with information technology. On the one hand, Beijing is
pushing the expansion of the Net at a feverish pace and,
on the other, regulating and even censoring it. As Duncan
Clark, cofounder of BDA, an Internet consulting company
in Beijing, told author David Sheff, "This environment
-- the regulations, the competition, the political uncertainties
-- makes these the fastest, most courageous, nimblest-thinking
people globally. To deal with this level of risk and still
sleep is no small accomplishment. But they're hooked on
it like some Chinese are becoming hooked on Starbucks cappuccino."
In this irresistible, groundbreaking book,
Sheff takes us into the trenches of the Chinese technology
revolution, introducing the major and minor players who
are leading China into the twenty-first century. Charismatic
and visionary players like Bo Feng, the dynamic -- and inexhaustible
-- venture capitalist who has discovered some of China's
most promising IT companies. And Edward Tian, a national
hero who has been described as China's Steve Jobs and Bill
Gates combined, who left his own start-up on the eve of
its IPO in order to lead the government's attempt to bring
broadband to the entire nation, in the process leapfrogging
the United States, Europe, and the rest of Asia with the
longest and fastest network in the world.
As the U.S. technological revolution wanes,
business leaders will be looking to the billion-plus potential
customers in China for new growth. In addition, the world's
newest member of the World Trade Organization will no longer
be a bystander in the global economy; it will be a fierce
competitor. And when hundreds of millions of Chinese have
access to unprecedented information and communication. China
itself will be profoundly altered. Jay Chang, an analyst
who covers China for Credit Suisse First Boston, sums up
the seismic nature of the changes: "What happens when
China successfully transforms from a mainly agrarian/industrial
nation into one that has significant input from the information
technology industry? What happens when eighty percent of
the state-owned enterprises in China are able to link economically
to the global Internet on fast pipes? What happens when
China's engineering talent pool is able to gain access to
high-end computing resources and exchange ideas and information
easily with their global peers? What happens when fifty
percent of the Chinese population gets wired in ten years
-- six hundred million people, the largest number of Internet
users in the world?" With its compelling, character-driven
story, researched over the course of three years, China
Dawn will be the definitive book on the subject.
David Sheff is a contributing editor
to Wired, Playboy, and Yahoo! Internet
Life and a writer for Fortune, Vanity Fair,
and other magazines. He is the author of the internationally
acclaimed Game Over. He lives with his wife and children
in the San Francisco Bay area.
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