Entrepreneur Wants All China in Her Net

The young self-made millionaire who is trying to get the Chinese hooked on her online service didn’t grow up with computers.

In fact, the village where Zhang Shuxin began elementary school didn’t have a single electric light.

Zhang, 33, is the founder and president of Information Highway--a Chinese-language network for the growing ranks of Chinese buying their first home computers.

Information Highway users can click to “Love Island” to find a mate; check reports from the stock markets in Shenzhen and Shanghai; ask the service’s law office for an update on national business policies; buy a concert ticket; or ask an expert how to get through to the kids.

Chat groups are monitored by Zhang’s company to keep off anti-government material, which is strictly illegal in China. But they’re lively nonetheless.

When China was conducting war games off Taiwan in March, network chat turned to debate on how the mainland could fight to recover Taiwan, and whether the United States would get involved.

“It was fun!” Zhang said in an interview, sitting on the edge of a leather sofa in her office in Beijing’s university district. She is an animated speaker, talking almost nonstop and pausing only for bursts of laughter.

“Most people in China don’t know what an online service is, or what it has to do with them,” Zhang said. “So we’re doing a lot of work to tell them it’s very useful, that it can help them live even better.”

Zhang’s network has 3,000 customers now, but needs 30,000 to make a profit. It advertises as the network for the common people. China’s first networks, by contrast, were for scholars who send messages in English on the Internet.

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Most Information Highway surfers stay inside China. It costs the equivalent of 6 cents a minute to send electronic domestic mail, while Internet connections costs eight times as much.

The government warned last winter that Chinese who use the Internet must abide by laws against anti-government comment and pornography.

Zhang said she is not concerned. She finds regulations on leaving and entering the country--even on computer networks--normal.

Besides, she added, “Most people here don’t understand English. And they don’t care what Americans are up to.”

But many people in China have a huge interest in the world of computers. The Chinese translation of Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ book “The Road Ahead” was a big hit. Zhang keeps a copy on her desk.

Market demand for personal computers in China is expected to jump by 50% this year to 1.7 million PCs. There are now three to four computers for every 100 urban households.

About 4.5 million personal computers are in use in the country, and the number is expected to reach 8 million by 2000. About 20% are in private homes, according to government figures.

Zhang’s path to success has been neither smooth nor straight.

During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, her father, a scientist, was one of hundreds of thousands of intellectuals who were persecuted.

He was imprisoned for two years, then sent to the countryside for farm labor. His family followed, and Zhang found herself starting first grade in a village with no electricity.

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When economic reform replaced the decade of fanaticism and turmoil, Zhang majored in chemistry at the prestigious University of Science and Technology.

“Studying science was one thing, but being a scientist? I didn’t have the right quiet disposition,” Zhang said. She worked as a reporter for China Science Daily, but concluded journalism in China was too limiting.

Besides, she said, so many Chinese university graduates stick with their first job until they die--”it’s pitiful.”

“Finally, I decided to think up my own company. Nobody telling me what to do. One day dream something, the next day go do it.”

To learn about the economy and business climate, she worked as a researcher in the high-technology enterprise bureau of the Chinese Academy of Science. Her job was to analyze applications for World Bank loans.

By 1992, she was ready to start a business.

“I had a lot of ideas, but I didn’t have money,” she said. “Then again, a lot of rich people don’t have ideas.”

So she sold ideas--marketing products, making companies’ images and promoting cultural events.

With the money she earned, she and her husband, a computer engineer, started a pager company just before personal beepers became about as common as Beijing bicycles. In two years, they earned nearly $2 million.

In late 1994, the couple decided to get out of pagers, take a vacation in the United States and see whether there was anything new in the world to invest in.

Zhang also wanted to look up old friends. More than 60 of the 80 people in her college class were living in the United States. One sent an electronic mail message about her arrival to the others, and the next day she had 30 responses.

“I could see that in the future this would be the biggest channel for communication, with an especially big market,” she said. “And China didn’t have it yet.”

So she went back and last year started Information Highway (in Chinese, “Ying Haiwei,” a transliteration from English).

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Local calls from Beijing or Xi’an link users to the domestic network or to the Internet. Shanghai will be added next, followed by nine more cities this year and 20, Zhang hopes, next year.

Information Highway also is the majority owner in a company in Los Angeles, IST Team Inc., linking Chinese Americans to the mainland through electronic mail. “Find your roots,” its ad says.

A recent article in the ruling Communist Party’s newspaper People’s Daily urged Chinese to work hard to make their own language one of the main ones used on the world’s information superhighway.

The article also went on to praise the idea of computer networks--even suggesting the networks could promote trust and understanding between the people and their government.

The appeal of the information superhighway, according to Zhang, is easy access and a breakdown of boundaries.

“You’re Chinese or American--not important. Rich or poor--not important. Information can be exchanged. It’s equal. It’s something humankind has been dreaming about for a long time.

“And it can bring a very big market.”