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

By David Sheff

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0066621194
• ISBN13: 9780066621197
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.9" x 0.7" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

inspiring and real story

I got this book by accident. I read "China Dream" first, then this one. I have a very similar background and life path described in the book: came to USA early 90s, finished a postgraduate degree, became a IT engineer and started up a technology company to help China traditional industry like Tobacco. To outsider, China is a very special place filled with controversial issues in all aspects, specially political and social issues. A great opportunity always comes from problems, complexity, confusion and uncertainty for most of people. Only most determined ones will eventually win. To give up everything going back to China is a very difficult personal decision, especially you have a family established in USA. I appreciate exactly what these people have been through. The story is far beyond the stories of the Valley. I will have another trip to China in this summer and hopefully I can talk with these guys.

An inspiring book

As an Asian watcher who lived abroad in China and Taiwan, I really enjoyed and sped through this book. The motivation of the characters (tireless and superhuman at times) to see the inevitable changes technology is bringing and then work to make China a part of it is both an exciting and touching story. If you enjoy stories of dreamers, doers, and the entrepreneur spirit, this is a good read for you.

Meet China's Bill Gates, Jerry Yang, Andy Grove, etc

I have been working in Beijing and other Chinese cities and can't believe that a book has come out that gives a sense of exactly what it's like to live and work in the IT industry of China. Edward Tian, Wang Zhidong (who has started a new company), and the VCs in this book are our equivalent of Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Jerry Yang, Andy Grove, and the major U.S. players. Read this book for an education and, in the process, be thoroughly entertained. Fantastic!

A compelling view of the IT revolution in China.

Sheff's Game Over is the best book ever written about videogames. I have been awaiting for his next book. It was worth the wait. I found the book after coming upon another review online. I have cut and pasted it here, since it sums the new book up: "China," writes David Sheff, is now "one of the most vibrant places on the planet, where each day has a life-or-death sense of purpose, despair, frustration, opportunity, hope, and dread." As this quotation reveals, Sheff's prose is as energetic and alive as his chosen subject, the digital revolution that is "invisibly but profoundly" transforming one of the world's oldest cultures into an economic and technological powerhouse. For a sense of the book's scope, consider some of the scenarios Sheff sketches in his preface. For instance, half of China's population is scheduled to become connected to the Internet within the next decade, creating an online community of 600 million users that could become the largest market for American technology products. And since the ability to exchange scientific, political, and personal information accompanies Internet access, the digitalization of China could just be a prelude to an eventual democratization of the country. The consequences of "digital packets and beams of light" could be staggering, particularly since any change in the Chinese government will have a tremendous impact on the entire global community. Sheff approaches his subject by focusing on two young Chinese information technology leaders: Bo Feng, investment banker and venture capitalist, and Edward Tian, CEO of China Netcom Corporation (CNC). The force that drives both men came into being with the Tiananmen Square tragedy: Like many Chinese students abroad at the time, they wanted to return to China to participate in the struggle for reform and to peacefully avenge the fate of the student protesters. Both men resolved to use the business acumen they acquired in the United States as an agent of change, although that resolve is also balanced by a patriotic emotion that is very compelling. Although there have been other group portraits of entrepreneurs in action (Randall Stross' eBoys being the most compelling), China Dawn draws you into its narrative with a power that exceeds that of any other similar book. After all, the destiny of humanity could hinge upon what happens in China. Written with more zeal and energy than most thrillers, this is a book that you'll find to be pleasurable as well as educational, entertaining as well as serious. (Holly McGuire and Sunil Sharma)